Is a Longer Retirement The New Second Adulthood?

My father and his father both lived another thirty-five to forty years after retirement.

And yet somehow, until recently, I never really thought about that very deeply.

I thought of them as having “a long retirement.”

But lately, I’ve started thinking about that gifted span of time differently.

They didn’t just retire. They got a second crack at adulthood. And if you and I are lucky, we probably will too.

Honestly, it took me several years after leaving the fire service before I could even comfortably call myself retired.

Sure, some of that was ego. “Fire Chief” sounds way cooler than “retired.” One sounds competent and authoritative. The other sounds like I spend Tuesday mornings comparing fibre supplements and discussing lawn maintenance beside a pickleball court.

But I think something else was going on, too. Not just denial that high fibre and pickleball were the gateways to compression hosiery and pureed food, but something about my retirement that I didn’t yet have the words for.

In my mind, sixty has always been the new forty. Not because that line was so pithy, but because in my head, I actually still felt like I was 40…ish.

And maybe it’s not really just in my mind.

Statistically, we are living longer, healthier lives than previous generations. That’s the goal, right? I think it practically says so on the Metamucil container and the side of the Quaker Oats bag.

Healthy ageing.
Longevity.
Vitality.
Extended lifespan.

Modern culture is practically obsessed with squeezing extra decades out of human existence.

And increasingly, it’s succeeding.

But psychologically, I’m not sure we’ve fully caught up to what that actually means yet.

But psychologically, I’m not sure we’ve fully caught up to what that actually means yet.

And I don’t mean psychologically in the financial sense — worrying whether you might outlive your retirement savings.

I mean something more developmentally unfamiliar than that. Something more akin to teenage angst.

This Is Why I Love the Germans!

There’s actually a German word, zugunruhe, used to describe the instinctive migratory restlessness birds experience before seasonal movement begins.

Biologists sometimes describe it as a kind of behavioural agitation — an unease that appears before migration itself fully starts.

And honestly, I sometimes wonder if humans experience something psychologically similar to approaching retirement.

Not necessarily panic.

Not unhappiness.

Not even dissatisfaction, exactly.

More like a growing internal awareness that one season of life is ending before the next one has fully taken shape.

A kind of anticipatory restlessness.

An instinctive sense of movement before clarity.

And perhaps that is part of what makes modern retirement feel surprisingly emotionally unfamiliar for so many people.

Hear me out.

Teenagers experience enormous emotional friction while trying to figure out:

• who they are,
• where they fit,
• what their future looks like,
• and what kind of life they want to build.

We expect uncertainty, experimentation, identity shifts, and emotional turbulence among younger people because, culturally, we recognise adolescence as a major developmental phase.

But perhaps modern retirement increasingly contains some surprisingly similar questions.

Not because retirees are becoming adolescents again.

But because longer, healthier lives may have quietly created another stage of adulthood involving:

• identity reconstruction,
• future ambiguity,
• social repositioning,
• freedom,
• possibility,
• and the strange realisation that there may still be a tremendous amount of life left to shape intentionally.

Historically, Retirement Was Never Really Designed to Hold Thirty Healthy Years of Autonomous Adulthood.

Recently, I came across the “Odyssey Plan” concept developed by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans (two Stanford Life Design Lab professors). It’s an exercise designed to help younger professionals and students imagine multiple possible futures for themselves instead of locking emotionally onto one rigid life path.

Briefly, it’s a prototyping exercise that asks participants to imagine three potential five-year life plan scenarios – their current plan, a second option that challenges their comfort zone, and the third is a “what if” scenario free from money, social expectations, or fear of judgment.

And honestly, that was the moment something clicked for me.

Why are younger adults encouraged to imagine futures, possibilities, reinventions, and multiple versions of adulthood…

…but retirees are largely expected to have everything figured out already?

Why do we assume someone entering retirement no longer needs future imagination?

Especially now that many retirees may still have decades of healthy, autonomous life ahead of them.

For many previous generations, retirement was relatively short. People slowed down physically sooner. Health declined earlier. Life expectancy was lower. Retirement often functioned less like a brand-new chapter and more like a gradual narrowing toward the end of life.

But modern retirement looks very different now.

Many retirees may still have:

• energy
• mobility
• cognition
• curiosity
• ambition
• and decades of life remaining after work ends.

That is not simply a life transition anymore.

That may actually be another major developmental life phase entirely.

And honestly, I wonder if some of the friction people feel around retirement has less to do with aging itself and more to do with the fact that modern longevity has quietly created more life than our old psychological scripts were ever designed to handle.

Because culturally, we still tend to frame retirement almost entirely as an ending. The end of work, ambition, structure, and dreams for the future.

But what if retirement isn’t just an ending? What if it’s just another milestone on the path through an adult life

What If There’s Extra Adulthood?

Because if someone retires at sixty-five and lives into their nineties, they may realistically spend as much time in retirement as they once spent building their career.

That changes the emotional math quite a bit.

And maybe that’s part of why retirement can sometimes feel unexpectedly uncomfortable, even when it’s financially secure and deeply wanted.

Yes, giving up work itself creates friction.

Work provides:

• identity
• structure
• routine
• social interaction
• momentum
• and usefulness.

Losing those things all at once absolutely creates noise inside people’s lives.

Human Zugunruhe?

What if the “itch” is not the subconscious fear that life is ending…

…but the sudden realisation that there may still be an enormous amount of life left?

And not just time.

Life.

Possibility.
Choice.
Freedom.
Reinvention.
Participation.
Another chapter that may last decades.

Honestly, that realisation can feel surprisingly disorienting.

Because culturally, we are remarkably good at preparing young adults for the future.

We encourage students to imagine possibilities.
And we celebrate reinvention in younger people.
Later on, we tell professionals to pivot, evolve, explore, and pursue meaning.

But retirees?

Retirees are often handed a surprisingly narrow script.

Relax.
Travel a bit.
Get a hobby.
Update your will.
Appoint someone with the power of attorney for when you eventually start slipping your gears.

And somehow that is supposed to prepare people for another potential thirty years of conscious adult life.

Maybe that’s why so many retirees quietly feel friction they cannot entirely explain.

Not because something is necessarily wrong.

But because modern longevity may have created a new developmental stage faster than culture has created language, rituals, expectations, and psychological frameworks to support it.

This is why a grocery store cake, a Hallmark card, and a fake gold watch no longer feel emotionally sufficient as preparation for retirement.

The Old Rituals No Longer Match the Scale of the Transition.

Especially if retirement itself is no longer merely the beginning of decline, but the beginning of a second adulthood.

And maybe that is the real existential realisation waiting quietly underneath modern retirement:

Not: “My life is almost over.”

But: “Holy shit…what exactly am I supposed to do with all this extra life?”

Perhaps previous generations simply never expected retirement to contain this much active life.

But many modern retirees increasingly do.

Which may explain why retirement can sometimes feel less like arriving at the end of something…

and more like standing somewhat awkwardly at the beginning of another adulthood entirely.

Suggested Internal Reading Section

You May Also Enjoy

Retirement and Social Connection: The Danger of “Bowling Alone”
Why retirement can quietly expose how much of our social participation has been accidentally outsourced to work.
https://imthinkingofretiring.com/retirement-social-connection-bowling-alone/

To Telic or Not to Telic: Why Retirement Feels Psychologically Strange
Why achievement-oriented living can leave many retirees feeling emotionally unsettled after work ends.
https://imthinkingofretiring.com/retirement-purpose-and-meaning/

Are You Reinventing Your Life After Retirement — Or For Retirement?
Why curiosity, participation, and future imagination may matter more than traditional retirement narratives suggest.
https://imthinkingofretiring.com/reinventing-your-life-after-retirement/

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🔗 References

This article is informed by research and writing related to longevity, adult development, retirement transition, and future design, including:

Burnett, B., & Evans, D. (2016). Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life. Knopf.
https://designingyour.life/the-book/

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The Importance of Connections: Ways to Live a Longer, Healthier Life.
https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/the-importance-of-connections-ways-to-live-a-longer-healthier-life/

University of Florida Department of Physiology and Aging. How Social Connections Increase Longevity and Healthy Aging.
https://distance.physiology.med.ufl.edu/about/articles/how-social-connections-increase-longevity-and-healthy-aging/

Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. Simon & Schuster.
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Bowling-Alone/Robert-D-Putnam/9780743203043