Sunday, March 1, 2015

Careers for Boomers the Second Time Around


In preparation for my impending retirement this year following a 30 year Social Work career, I've been searching for ideas on ways to "reinvent" myself and find something useful to do while in retirement in addition to generating some income.  I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels stuck after working in the same comfortable career for decades. My generation will most likely be the last to have worked in one career path with the same employer until they've reached retirement age. While this situation provides job security and for some of the lucky ones a lifetime pension, it doesn't prepare us for what Gail Sheehy, author of "New Passages" has termed the "Second Adulthood" the years from age 45 to 100+. She makes the point that for the first time in history many in the advanced countries are living longer lives well into their 80s and beyond. This means by retirement age we could still have 25 to 30 years left to fill. Sheehy poses the question in her book, "What to do with this leftover life?"
 To help with this New Age  dilemma;  USA Today offers retirement topics at retirement.usatoday.com.   2 boomer babes at http://2boomerbabes.com have a live radio show covering an array of topics such as travel, empty nesting, caring for aging parents, health and more. There is also Retired-Brains.com a site to help retirees find jobs and start businesses as almost 23.6 % of new businesses were started by those ages 55 to 64, according the Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity.
Thankfully there are numerous sources on the Web to help Boomers navigate in these unchartered times!