March 19, 2003
By Jane Glenn Haas
Once there was predictability in life. Learn. Work. Rest. Die.
Well, forget those options.
The assumption that productive life ends at 65 for most of us, that retirement years belong on the golf course, that there's any retirement at all, are very 20th-century concepts.
The latest nail in the coffin of elder years spent at leisure is driven by Maddy Dychtwald, an expert on generational marketing who bills herself as a futurist.
A senior vice president of Age Wave, Dychtwald says "re-creation," not "recreation," will mark the years once labeled "senior" and "golden."
In her new book, "Cycles: How We Will Live, Work, and Buy," Dychtwald argues that 21st-century longevity liberates us from society's traditional expectations for a so-called old age.
Instead of aging, "it's time to wake people up to the possibilities" of passing years, she says.
What are we talking about here? A big shift, a needed shift from the antiquated idea that productivity and purpose end at age 65. Instead of being the end of the road, the age marker suddenly becomes a springboard to new opportunities, from lifelong learning experiences to late-life career changes.
Avoiding what we now consider "aging" _ that is, gradual deterioration of mind, body and spirit _ will be the new goals.
"Live long, live healthy, die fast' will be one of our mantras in the cyclic life, put in action through a lifetime commitment to recover and rejuvenation," Dychtwald writes. "Self-responsibility and personal empowerment will become watchwords of health care. Rejuvenation medicine including experimentation with supernutrition, pharmaceutical solutions, hormone manipulation, bionics and regenerative medicines as well as 'cosmeceuticals' and many options not yet available will become common."
We will make it our job to make sure we don't look or act old, she says.
Sound like work? Say you wanted a few years of just plain leisurely downtime?
Dychtwald says, stop your bellyaching.
"Society will change its attitude toward aging not because it wants to but because it has to," she says.
Just do the math. When Social Security began, there were 40 workers for every retiree. Now there are three.
Only one-third of the boomers will have saved enough funds to retire at 65.
People will live longer. People will have to work longer. Society will change to accept older workers, fewer retirees.
It's all complicated.
We need to plan better, says Dychtwald. To reinvent ourselves from time to time, to start new careers or try different lifestyles, we need financial wherewithal.
Don't expect that financial help to come from government.
"The biggest danger is that this paradim is not being recognized by government," Dychtwald says. "We may expect to reinvent retirement, but don't expect society to necessarily catch on right away."
Art Linkletter said, "Old age ain't for sissies," and he was talking about the old old age, the era of predictability.
But if nothing's predictable any more, then theoretically, anything's possible.
The basic message: Dare to think of your life as a cycle of opportunity. And don't dare to stand still.
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