COMMENT | When I left full-time work for good, I felt a whiff of freedom. Free to do whatever with the occasional pleasantries of retirement. It was liberating – for a while.

With full-time work routines - gone, social interactions - gone, professional recognition – gone, mental focus getting fuzzy by the day, what now?

I eventually reverted to my normal baseline of making a day well spent.

Can’t just let life slip by.

The Japanese call it ikigai – a motivation for living, a reason to get out of bed each morning.

Did retirement transform my weekdays into extended weekends of endless vacation? No. There’s only so much leisure time to lap up. Soon it hits you: been there, done that.

What now? Think ikigai.

Barring unexpected health predicaments, I’ll have another 20 years or more, if I’m still mobile, to make small changes, adapt and reinvent.

I collected my first paycheck decades ago. Life and identity were structured around my journalism work. On that score, 20 years in five-year blocks are not long to reboot, to try out ‘new’ things.

Transformative phases

Post-retirement plays back the tape of life in transformative phases: birth, education, work, marriage, raising a family, more work, retirement, old age, physical deterioration, and when it kicks in - death.

Retirees are perceivably phasing out. So, we might as well enjoy the trip and get busy living – and loving. Discard busying with being old. We can still learn from the younger tech-driven generation. They will eventually ride the same carousel.

If the young ones think retirement means putting the oldies out to pasture, they are dead wrong. Post-retirement could still throw us a curveball. We can still hit a home run – if we embrace retirement as a second wind to re-invent.

Mental health issues need not occur post-retirement. But studies have shown that physical deterioration will happen if one slips into a routine of not doing much and withdraws from intellectual engagements.

Many of my friends have retired. Some due to failing health. Some because of lifestyle choice or voluntary redundancy. Some because they have had it - and carry their job-related angst into retirement. The sour taste lingers.

Tapping into skill sets

Then there are those who tap into their skill sets and knowledge to carry on doing what they did in their previous life. They are the ones with a growth mindset. Old age is just a number, a social construct.

They recharge to acquire new skills and knowledge so they can, at last, do what they have always wanted to, on their own terms. Their ikigai glows in post-retirement with attainable goals even as time is running out.

This, of course, assumes that most can afford to retire debt-free, are financially fluid with no dependants or old-age impediments. Affordability – that’s the baggage we carry in our transit to retirement.

The consensus is most Malaysians cannot afford to retire. Not with their current level of EPF savings (Unless your employed children are willing to dole out your monthly allowance. Wishful thinking?).

EPF savings

The EPF report in December 2021 notes that emergency withdrawals from EPF savings during the pandemic “have inevitably led to 6.1 million members now having less than RM10,000 in their EPF accounts, of which 3.6 million have less than RM1,000, levels at which members are not able to guarantee their retirement”.

World Bank data also shows that more than half of EPF members have account balances of less than RM250,000 at age 54, which falls far short of providing a safety nest when they retire at 60.

Financial planners generally suggest that retirees will need between half and two-thirds of their final salary after tax to maintain their lifestyle for another 15 to 20 years.

Work out the sums to see if retirement is affordable to many. Even on a guesstimate of RM3,000 a month for basic household expenditure, rent-free, RM250,000 will only last seven years or so.

Yes, it’s over-simplifying. But retirement’s not an extended vacation to many.

If it’s any consolation (pardon the cliché): the best things in life are free - like reading a good book, walking in the park, working out at home, playing with the grandchildren, or engaging with friends on living a productive life and finishing well.

ERIC LOO was a journalist and media academic.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.