Revitalizing Retirement: Reshaping Your Identity, Relationships, and Purpose

The final chapter expounds the range of possibilities for personal happiness in retirement. According to [NANCY K. SCHLOSSBERG], staying happy requires an active focus on the positive aspects of life, on learning to lower expectancies, and on maintaining personal control. The importance of nurturing established relationships and activities as well as developing new ones is reiterated, as are the necessities of mattering to self and others and the need for reshaping the expression of interests and dreams in retirement. Schlossberg places the responsibility for "success" or "happiness" in retirement squarely and unrealistic-ally with the individual. In addition to the assumption of adequate financial and social capital and health care, thriving retirees must also be blessed with a strong psychological portfolio allowing themselves to "reframe," "rebuild," "reshape." or "reinvent" life circumstances in a revitalized retirement. This book, targeted to upper middle-class readers, does not consider how uncertain or low income levels, poor health, and reduced social companionship constrain the ability to revitalize oneself. Also side-stepped is reference to another later occurring stage involving reductions in health, income, and social capital, resulting in moving from being a "retiree" to being old and frail, a journey long acknowledged as being faster for the poor. Since 2008, the larger context of retirement has been changed by widespread job losses and the reduction of pension values as well as personal equity. Retirement, well planned or not, is going to become a much tougher life stage because of processes beyond one's control. As individual resources become depleted and potential opportunities disappear, society will have to increase economic and social resources for ordinary individuals to help them maintain sufficient quality of life. Perhaps increasing health, education, and social services will also be recognised as a form of economic stimulus. Beyond a brief afterword about building caring communities for all age groups, this book does not discuss any social, economic, or political perspectives on the maintenance of sufficient quality of life for all retirees over time. A language of individual achievement is used throughout the text, emphasising focus, effort, and commitment so that a person will "ace" rather than "flunk" retirement. While the author is clearly promoting personal mastery and basic full-spectrum need fulfillment for older adults, the