The Baby Boomer Generation Rocks Retirement

“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

Gandalf

J.R.R. Tolkien

Fellowship of the Ring

Retire as defined by Macmillan, “To withdraw oneself from business, public life or active service,” doesn’t describe where the Baby Boomer generation is headed. We are redefining this stage of life as we have every phase we have passed through.

Seventy-eight million strong, the Baby Boomer generation will become America’s first leisure class since the Pre-Civil War landed gentry. Actually, for many of us leisure isn’t new. We retired before going to work. We turned on, tuned in and dropped out for a few glorious years and discovered the joys of simplicity before life’s realities set in.

But it has been a long time since we set our own priorities. Eventually we succumbed to the pressures of achieving and raising families, sublimating our deepest interests and best skills for sensible goals.

Our lives became structured around time schedules and deadlines. Our work assumed more and more importance, until it became so crucial to our identity, losing it feels like losing ourselves. Caught up in the stresses of life, our mission to forge a new age became a dimly remembered wish. Some say we sold out, trading the peace symbol for the BMW symbol.

Did we?

Is the dream dead or was it set aside while we dealt with adult responsibilities?

At the dawning of the Age of Aquarius with one quarter of our life yet to live, we Boomers can still fulfill the mission that called us so long ago.

What we discovered in our youth will serve us well in this next phase of life, when we again possess the precious gift of leisure, once reserved for the elite and flower children.

What will we do with it this time?