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“The future ain’t what it used to be.”  Yogi Berra

“Retirement ain’t what it used to be.”  Jim Peacock

First off, ‘retirement’ is clearly not the correct word. I don’t think we have found the right word yet but they also didn’t know what to call young people in their teens in the early 1900’s until a psychologist studied them and came up with “teenager” sometime in the 1920’s.  *(Did you know that it was the automobile and the freedom it gave this age group that helped create “teenagers”? That and the fact that many people moved from rural farm life to a more urban manufacturing life).

What we are calling this retirement time period ranges from 3rd Age, The Third Quarter, Graduation, Commencement, Encore Career, The Bonus Years, and more. I prefer to call it “rebalancing” (Read my blog on rebalancing).  Why? Because I don’t see this as a time to end (retire), begin, or change –but more as a transition that requires rebalancing your values, interests, passions, time, and energy. But as the 76,000,000 Boomers wander into this new developmental stage, psychologists and sociologists will be studying the traits that make up this stage in our lives. We just need to wait until they figure us out 🙂  Listen to Jane Fonda talk about this new adult developmental stage. Yes, seriously, it’s Jane Fonda and it’s very good —TEDTalk.