Why You May Want to ‘Rewire’ Instead of Retire

Over her varied career, Yvette Ewing ran a call center for a strip-mall builder, worked for a local school district and served in the Army. Looking ahead to her seventh decade, she chose to pursue a new passion: providing social services to formerly incarcerated people.

To fuel her passion, she came to realize that she had to fundamentally change, or "rewire," her attitude toward work, her expectations about retirement and her purpose in life.

Rewiring is not a seamless process like ordering a latte in a coffee shop. It may emerge from a personal epiphany or introspective soul searching. While many people are reluctant to leave the mainstream of conventional careers, millions of retirees find their interests need to be nurtured in less-profitable pursuits, often involving a second career.

While rewiring is not an explicit rejection of a conventional retirement centered around leisure and travel, it involves more of a focus on community and service. It may involve a new skill set, attitude and world view. It can be more altruistic yet builds upon life experiences and "soft" skills. You may have to use different brain circuits that are focused on societal and not exclusively personal needs.

Ewing is now the executive director of The Community Works, a social service agency in Waukegan, Illinois, north of Chicago. The path to her new calling was strewn with formidable impediments of childhood abuse, neglect, addiction, a mental breakdown, diabetes and a stroke. Her travails reinforced the idea that she needed to give back to help her community in a targeted way.

"I heard a voice," Ewing recalled while recounting during the nadir of her past despair. "And it spoke to me in a voice I could understand. It was in a place of love. I needed to help people find their identities and understand who they are."

In building Community Works and partnering with other service providers, Ewing is creating an organization that offers programs that teach formerly incarcerated local residents how to garden, cook and train for renewable energy projects. It also provides free lifetime career coaching for those who need it the most. Some of these programs may soon have to close because of the Trump administration's elimination of federal social-services grants.

"The level of brokenness in my community is indescribable," Ewing says. "Many need a new identity. We're leveraging everything we got to pull it off."

Millions of Americans are embracing rewiring. After devoting decades of work to pay the bills, raise children and ascend the economic ladder, they want to flourish holistically in their third chapter.

A significant number of older Americans are not completely leaving the job market because they find deep meaning and connection in work, although they may need to rewire to find something more satisfying and less stressful. The workforce reflects that trend: AARP, using Census Bureau data, projects that nearly one-third of the U.S. working population will be 65 to 74 years old by 2026, compared with about 27% in 2016.

Almost three-fourths of working people aged 60 to 74 told AARP in a survey that "job enjoyment" was the principal reason they stayed in the workforce. Still, rewiring can help to derive a deeper sense of satisfaction and purpose from the work you do.

If you rewire correctly, "you'll have enough money so that you can sleep at night and enough purpose that you want to wake up in the morning," says Mitch Anthony, author of "The New Retirementality." Anthony, who counsels financial advisers, says people need to ask themselves how they will spend their time in retirement other than paying for retirement.

Anthony recalls one man who appeared to have achieved the American Dream. He had several vacation homes, including one in the Cayman Islands. But when his financial adviser asked what he was going to do in his retirement, "a tear came to his eye." He had apparently never thought of what he was going to do to occupy the bulk of his retirement. Like many people, maybe he realized that travel and golf weren't enough.

After some introspection, the man, a client of one of Anthony's clients, devoted himself to help formerly incarcerated men reassimilate into society. "That gave him purpose again," says Anthony.

Find something that ignites your community compassion. Localize your labor. Instead of making a long commute to sit in an office or flying to a remote country, see how you can help your community. There are always volunteer opportunities, ranging from stocking shelves in food pantries to working on environmental conservation. Nonprofits are always looking for people with executive or government experience.

"Whom do you [want to] serve?" is one of the fundamental questions Ewing poses. To sample local opportunities, check out VolunteerMatch, which posts openings in or near your community.

Keep in mind that the wholesale cuts in federal spending ordered by the White House means many nonprofits will need more volunteers — especially if they lose federal support (as The Community Works did). Ewing, for example, is faced with the loss of a $1 million federal grant for her organization's "Hero Academy/Life Coaching Center." If you choose community work, don't be afraid to accept novel and often stressful challenges.

Engage in something satisfying. If you're no longer on the career treadmill, you can do nearly anything that provides personal meaning. Ideally, since you are no longer focused on earning money, volunteer or targeted service work might be the ticket. Meaningful work may even lead to greater long-term happiness.

Research led by Prof. Shigehiro Oishi of the University of Chicago found that people who experience the highest levels of happiness are the most successful in terms of relationships and volunteer work, while people who make more money may experience lower levels of happiness.

That's why rewiring may offer the answer to the question of what you would do if you didn't have to work exclusively for money.

"Find something you would gladly do for free and share," Ewing adds. "Find an affinity group. Don't be afraid to answer the call. Your mission may be for one person or worldwide. Just walk by faith, and the spirit will guide you."

Get and stay connected. One of the pronounced downsides of leaving a conventional work environment is the loss of social connection. Former Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy highlighted this subject in his report on loneliness, which can lead to poor health and diminished wellbeing.

"When loneliness persists for a long time, . . . it has negative effects on our mental and physical health," Murthy said in a Guardian interview." That's why it's important that we have tools to address it." One of the most powerful rewiring tools is maintaining a social network. Whether it's a service club or regular volunteer work, social connections need to be essential links in any rewired mode.

Of course, the circuitous path to rewiring is a lot easier if you've done financial planning and you can cover your living and discretionary expenses past your conventional career. It would be useful to engage a fee-only Certified Financial Planner who can help you chart your course. Health is also an essential factor. Anthony suggests people find a planner who can do "life planning" or "retirement coaching" who focuses on quality of life in addition to financial advice.

At the core of rewiring, though, is what Ewing calls "vertical love." You'll ask tough questions about who you are and how you can serve, but the lodestone is pure humility: "You have to love something bigger than yourself."