Mens Matters + Mental Health
I’m not retiring, I’m moving on.
As a society we are ambitious to make our productive years of work reward us well. We train professionally, learn on the job, acquire skills through additional work training and changes in direction. We even begin to define our life’s success by our career achievements and sometimes these exceed the successes in our family and personal lives.
Our Uni degrees, life learnings, accreditations and professional networks create the framework for our career success, and we enjoy the rewards and recognition it provides.
Retirement in the industrial age quite often took us to within 10 years of average life expectancy.
Today the difference can be as much as 25 years so what formal or informal training and practice do we put into place that equips us for the post career phase of life?
It is easy to say I have had enough of work. It is time. I am ready to relax, travel, play golf, move down the coast, give back etc.
Part of our next phase is giving up the privileges earnt…
Part of our next phase is giving up the privileges earnt, habits and recognition of our career. The things that made us “interesting”, the thing that rewarded us financially or with power. Even the things that we didn’t even realise were important to us — a car parking spot, club access, influence, opinion.
As our recognition of the challenges of mental health and mens and middle age mental health in particular grow and our realisation of poor mental health being linked to lack of purpose MSY explores how some men have prepared for the journey beyond the middle years of career focus.
We chat about their journey, their moments of clarity and challenges. What they are doing or have done to approach a significant shift in life or chose to continue beyond the “normal” age of stopping work and continue to find purpose, excitement, and relevance by doing what they do.
Through sharing our stories and celebrating our successes and failures that we can help others…
It is through sharing our stories and celebrating our successes and failures that we can help others recognise their value to community irrespective of what they are doing and move beyond recognition being based on career but on life’s journey and wisdom.