Redefining Retirement

World Tennis No.1 Ashleigh Barty’s recent announcement of retirement from professional tennis at the age of 25 was ‘shocking’ breaking news for all media channels and social media. It is not the first time that a sports professional is retiring at the peak of his or her performance and fame. Yet, these are rare exceptions rather than the norm. Competitive sports as a career have a much limited span than other regular professions some of which do not even have any official retirement age.

Coming just a few weeks after winning the Australian Open, a first in 44 years for an Australian woman who won three Grand Slam titles in three different surfaces- Wimbledon, French and Australian Opens, Barty’s was a bold decision. She held the World No.1 position for 121 weeks and for three consecutive years at No.1.

Why now, why so soon? Barty articulated the answer as she felt ‘physically spent’ and having no ‘emotional want to challenge yourself at the very top level anymore’. Well, she will have her said reasons or unsaid reasons to take such a decision.

In recent history there are a few, still very few, such examples of professionals retiring at their peak and at a relatively young age. Let me take one more such extraordinary retirement of a sports star.

In 2016 the German-Finnish racing driver Nico Erik Rosberg announced his retirement just five days after winning the Formula-1 World Championship. That Rosberg’s father Keke Rosberg himself was the F1 World Champion in 1982 or that he was brought up in Monaco may be incidental to his illustrious racing career starting with competitive go-kart racing at the age of six, progressing into car racing at the age of 15 and winning nine races in 2002 at the age of 16. As teammates Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton had several F1 race wins and a much documented rivalry between them.

As teammates, Hamilton and Rosberg won 54 of 78 races over four seasons. Hamilton had 32 victories, 55 podium finishes and qualified ahead of Rosberg 42 times. Rosberg had 22 victories, 50 podium finishes and qualified ahead of Hamilton 36 times. During this period, Hamilton won the Formula One World Championship title twice, and Rosberg won the title once.

Retiring from F1 racing as a World Champion at the age of 31 is not something everyone would want to do. But for those who want to do they have their reasons. As for Rosberg, he too felt he achieved what he wanted, and wanted to focus on other things in life with his young family.

It is not that retirements make news only for the young. The old too can take such bold decisions to retire. When Pope Benedict XVI resigned as Pope in 2013 it was received as a shockingly extraordinary decision. And indeed, it was shockingly extraordinary if we look at the history of papacy in the Catholic Church. It was for the first time in more than 700 years a Catholic Pope was voluntarily resigning. Otherwise, in the modern era popes retired only on death. Pope Benedict XVI cited poor health related to old age as the reason for his resignation. While that is a genuine reason for any retirement in most professions, that was pretty much unusual for a Pope. The former Pope now known as Pope Emeritus leads a mostly private spiritual life after retirement. He himself has expressed his desire to be known as “Father Benedict”. He finds his fulfilment even beyond papacy.

These and other similar cases of extraordinary retirements point towards new possibilities of defining and defying retirements as we know the concept in its traditional sense. The industrial era brought with it certain definitions and limits of the concept of ‘work’. Retirement is one such. Work was defined as doing certain tasks for remuneration to accomplish set goals within a certain time limit and with specified starting age and retiring age. In the pre-industrial world retiring was more of a natural process of retiring hurt or retiring due to old age. In sports, entertainment or such voluntary and highly specialised professions fitness and winning chances determined voluntary or forced retirements. By and large most people followed the normal course of work and retirement.

Things have started changing in the last couple of decades for a small but growing number of professionals in different fields. People have started redefining success and fulfilment. Doing more of the same thing, going for the Nth championship title, multiplying the monetary rewards or being in the limelight of fame are not always the motivating forces for these small number of people. They have other ways of finding fulfilment which could be personal or even irrational to others. For long retirement was the opposite of work. Not anymore, even for the many regular retirees. Many of them ‘retire’ while they are physically and mentally active and they ‘retry’ different things rather than retiring from active life.

Recently someone met me for career guidance after over a decade long break from a corporate career. She asked me ‘are you retired?’ I said, ‘No. I stopped working’. I had to give a short explanation to make her understand the difference. I stopped working almost 12 years back and never allowed myself to be retired. I made a late entry into my corporate career and to compensate for that I made an early exit!

Alternative to work for many people used to be some other work for long time and even now for the most. But now for a small minority non-work is an alternative to work. Non-work need not mean being idle or being of no value. Non-work would mean to stay away from the limitations and the perks of work and find other meaningful or fulfilling activities, personal pursuits, or social engagements. This choice can now happen at any stage and at any age. That is why we now see youngsters starting up different things early on in their life while at the college or in their early corporate careers.

Work is getting redefined in many ways in the 21^st century, much faster than in the previous century. So, are all the other things related to work. Maybe in the 22^nd century humans may not need to work at all. Instead, they will go back to the Garden of Eden, the sandy beaches of the ocean or to the alluring snowy mountains while machines do all the work, much of the thinking, planning and management!

“When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.” - Lao Tsu