Shaping A Life Of Significance For Retirement

by R. Jack Hansen, Jerry P. Haas

This retirement book focuses on the personal dimensions of the move from full-time work to partial or full retirement. Drawing upon conversations with retired professionals from around the country, it identifies some of the key transitions in the first years of retirement, the unique opportunities for personal growth in this phase of life, and the real challenges we must face. Retired engineer Jack Hansen and spiritual formation leader Jerry Haas explore the transitions, opportunities, and challenges of facing retirement through a series of interviews with persons facing and in retirement. It is about the more personal dimensions of the transition from working full time to retirement, including relationships, feelings of self-worth and purpose, and spiritual and intellectual growth.
Taken as a whole, the conversations and interactions with retirees suggest an exciting and challenging picture of retirement. This time of life can be one of significant personal growth. It can also be an opportunity for further contribution to one's professional field or the investment of one's talents and experience in volunteer capacities. It is also clear that moving from full-time work to retirement involves important and sometimes painful adjustments in key relationships and in sources of self worth. With some attention and effort, however, these are usually worked through successfully in early retirement years.

110 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2010

Reviews

[Cindy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shaping A Life of Significance for Retirement, by R. Jack Hansen and Jerry P, Haas, is a short but compelling read on the emotional and spiritual challenges of aging and retirement. It raises many provocative questions that are worth pondering by those approaching retirement or already in it. Much of it includes the experiences and insights of a small group of subjects the authors interviewed. I benefited from reading the book, and it is a volume that I will keep. Nonetheless, the subjects on which were almost exclusively professional and apparently comfortable financially. Many were church leaders. Unfortunately, many retirees today are struggling far too much with survival to be concerned with significance. I just wish the authors had acknowledged the wider world of aging a bit more.

[Mark Lacy · Rating 2 out of 5]

[November 27, 2011] Facing the strong likelihood of retiring next summer, I thought I might benefit from reading about retirement - but not the usual stuff about finances and health care. When I found this book in Amazon it seemed like something I could benefit from. However, I got little from it, and stopped reading partway through, even though it's a short book. The authors drew on interviews with 25 people who have retired. I grew weary of reading "John Doe said this ... Jane Smith felt like ..." etc. It felt less like either a warm read or a challenging tome and more like a research report. And I learned nothing new from their conclusions.