The word is in the air. My generation, the baby boomers, are either in the throes of conceptualizing life after employment, or already in the weeds of transition. As for me, I officially retired from the University of Washington two Junes ago, but truth to tell, I am not retired. And quite honestly, though I know I should be grateful since the ability to retire is a privilege that not everyone can afford, the fact is that I find the idea of retirement scarily unattractive. I have no intention of retiring from active employment somewhere.

Given my desire to avoid retirement, I was lucky that after I ended my 50-year tenure with the sociology department at the University of Washington, I was able to continue to be employed as a relationship expert on Married at First Sight, a reality television show on the Lifetime television network. It cushioned my transition from being a professor to being something else.

And to be honest, while I had loved being a professor, I was ready to invest time elsewhere. I wanted a change, but not to a beach or pickleball court. I wanted the same level of engagement and challenge I had experienced most of my life, but it needed a new venue. Not once did I fantasize about “retiring” to some version of infinite leisure.

I think humans are healthier and happier doing something meaningful, and to some extent, structured. For me, I need to be touching people’s lives, challenging myself, being creative, learning something new, working with people who have something to teach me. Perhaps I am delusional about this, but I think these requirements keep me from feeling old. My vision is that to retain some youthfulness, we should keep doing things that challenge us and keep us passionately interested. I believe that if we just do days that blur together everything sags, we lose focus, our aches and pains become a more primary concern, and joy occurs more rarely. It doesn’t have to be another job. But it does have to be a committed and passionate engagement.

Take my friends Ruth and Phil. Both extremely driven and successful physicians, Ruth found meaning after leaving medicine by becoming a steadfast volunteer at the Humane Society in Seattle, while Phil loved giving weekly free tours of the architectural marvels of New York City. They wanted to give back, and they created days that they felt mattered. They reorganized and built
new habits for daily life.

Whether it’s volunteer or paid work, I think work anchors life. It gives us purpose, even if it is not beloved, especially when it fills our soul. Not everyone has been fortunate enough to have soulful work, but most of us feel pride and self-respect when we show up, do a job well, and help the world function. That sense of place and mission is so comforting that if it disappears, and there is confusion about what comes next, people can sink into depression.

It is well known that retirement has its dangers. Individuals now free to choose their path often find it is difficult to replace the centrality of work with something else. Ask someone how retirement is going, and sometimes the response will be about how unexpectedly difficult the transition has been. But if we conceptualize that we are not retiring but creating a new or expanded identity, it might take the sting out of this next phase of life.

This need for rethinking our identity is no small thing. A much-replicated research study once asked a group of employed men and women to write down the top 20 things that described who they were. Almost without exception, the first or second thing a person mentioned was what they did for a living.

Personally, it has been important for me to have a new center of my life. I not only enjoy my present television career, I need it. And when that changes, I will concentrate on something else. To me, saying “I’m retired” implies that I am on the downslope. What I want, and what I think is important, is to wake up and eagerly embrace each day, to feel that our days hold promises of discovery, joy, and accomplishment, to feel that we still matter.

I think humans are healthier and happier doing something meaningful, and to some extent, structured.

This prescription does not mean anyone has to stop playing golf or travel. I am happy to have more time to garden, ride, see the world, and write. But I think life also needs a center, and for me, it’s a job or project, or a volunteer job that really helps people, animals or civic life. Whatever it is, I want to continue feeling vital and in growth mode for as long as I can.

So, can we find a better word than retirement? I am not sure what it should be called but it should be about beginning rather than leaving. It should connote new paths rather than the end of the road. At least that’s what I’m aiming for.

Q: I am a 38-year-old single man who is well known in Seattle. I have a firm that I started that is very successful. I am also well off. Like everyone else, I want to find love, but I want to be loved for who I am, not what I make. I feel, however, that I have a target on my back. I meet women through work, and after a while, they want to get serious, but I am nervous about what they really are attracted to. I feel that it’s about the money, and while I obviously like money too, I don’t want that to be the major reason they are eager to get married.

What can I do to find a woman that will love me money or not, and not be so cautious that I ruin a relationship with someone who really could love me without all the trappings?

A: Of course, women will be attracted to someone who could help provide a great lifestyle. But believe me, if that person is also a jerk, most women will get out of Dodge pretty quickly. Nonetheless, I grant you that there are women who are only considering a guy who can buy them a three-carat diamond and a private jet, but they aren’t the majority — unless you are only recruiting from the Kardashians.

In all seriousness, I worry about what seems to be your feeling that you can’t trust your own instincts about differentiating women who are shallow from women who have the capacity to love you. But if you want some guidelines, find someone who has created a life already and see what that life looks like. By her 30s, a woman with heart and the ability to love will have good friends who are also admirable and interesting people. Who a person is close with is usually illustrative of the person’s personality and values. Date women who have accomplishments of their own — what have they done with their lives? A woman who is a professional of some kind or who has created a business or been involved in important charitable or civic activities has a track record that worked well before you. She values her life too much to imperil it by being with someone who isn’t a good person, over and above whatever wealth they have accumulated.

If you are meeting the “wrong” kind of woman, you might rethink how you get to know them. Do you try and impress them with things they could not afford to do on their own? They might be wowed by lavish experiences, and that might give you the wrong impression, but a woman is not a fortune hunter just because she likes any advantages you show her. On the other hand, if you do the things that romantic movies show us that money can buy (taking her to New York for the weekend, for example) you are showing her that is what she can expect as your partner. Is that really in your best interests? Also, if you do these “flashy” things, you will look like you are trying hard to impress her. In other words, whether you realize it or not, if you only show her an expensive lifestyle, and she has a good time, you are setting her up to be labeled as someone into you just for your money.

I am not asking you to drop all the advantages you may have and look for the next Mother Teresa, but if you want to find out why a woman would love you, look at her past before she met you, and look at her present and what she puts first in her life. And look to yourself to see if you are picking women only based on looks and not on character. You need to take in the whole person, much the same way you want a woman to see you.

If you just can’t believe a woman could love you for yourself rather than your income, then I suggest going to a counselor or therapist to find out why you feel that way, and how you can change.