07/21/97 COMMENTARY: 10 YEARS ON THE OUTSIDE

COMMENTARY: 10 YEARS ON THE OUTSIDE

You've made it through the office farewell party, and Retirement Day has come and gone. Now, you have no job to go to, no morning coffee break with co-workers, no business lunches, no tough-but-familiar routines to give your day shape and purpose. You're on your own. What do you do next?
A week after that day 10 years ago when I said goodbye to my 32-year career as an editor at BUSINESS WEEK, I flew off to live in Madrid as a freelance journalist, something I had longed to do for years. That move opened what has turned out to be a decade of mostly satisfying, trouble-free retirement.
Luckily, I did not retire either to escape from a job I hated or to pry myself loose from one I didn't know how to live without. I enjoyed my work most of the time, but I knew the day would come when I would give it up. So I spent many preretirement hours thinking about what I would do when I had cleaned out my desk for the last time. It turned out that in important respects, what I wanted--activities that fulfilled me--was not different from what I had while working.
After 18 months in Spain, I returned to New York and settled into a daily routine of four hours in front of a computer. I exchange E-mail with my sons and a few friends and occasionally surf the Web. But mostly, I slog away at a historical novel about Spain. As a friend of mine comments, the real trouble with retirement is that you never get a day off.
Early on, I resolved to try to do at least one thing a day to make myself feel good. Fortunately, through a combination of pension, investments, and Social Security, I left my job with enough money for my needs, plus a little more for wants. So I allow myself plenty of time for eating out with friends. I've gotten closer to my family. I read fiction, listen to classical music, make treks along the fascinating streets of Manhattan. I regularly force myself to climb onto my cross-country ski machine. I spend several months of the year in Paris, London, Madrid, and Berlin. I try--with limited success--to use time with a sharper sense of its fleeting preciousness.
For me, retirement has meant reassuring continuity rather than wrenching change. Of course, many things are different. But on the day after I retired, my life was still my life, and I still faced the responsibility of making whatever I could of it.
To do that, I could no longer count on the discipline and the support system of a job. But I had acquired a number of intangible assets over the years. I had strong interests--in travel, languages, history, books, and music. They added richness to life before I retired, and I knew I could count on them later. I also brought a feeling of satisfaction and modest achievement carried over from my former job. That surprised me. But it makes sense that people who feel good about what they have accomplished stand a better chance of repeating the experience in retirement than those who leave their work smoldering with disappointment and resentment.
As I'd suspected, retirement forces you to fall back on your own resources, intellectual and emotional as well as financial. These have to be cultivated over time, not in the week following your last day at work. And they must be interests that matter. I doubt people who have handled responsible jobs will be happy just taking water aerobics classes or learning to cook Chinese. Some of that is fine, but you probably will require more substantial fare--activities that answer a need to be useful and committed, such as volunteering in a community program or learning to read Homer in the original Greek.
THE TRICK. Have I made my retirement seem all beer and skittles? It's not. For one thing, it subtly alters how people treat you. I've noticed that former colleagues and friends ask my opinion less often and show far less interest when I tell them anyway. Others behave as though I had vanished down a black hole. Does this hurt? As T.E. Lawrence replied when he held his hand over the candle flame: ''Oh, it hurts, but the trick is not to care.''
Finally, I remind myself that though my efforts make a difference, my retirement depends on a lot of luck. My health, for example, has held up pretty well. But I've read that the first decade is usually the smoothest. After that, health problems can multiply. I will be entering that second decade soon. Aging, I've learned, brings new aches and pains, as well as regrets and dark thoughts of mortality. Of course, that's not just retirement: It's the human condition.
But hey, who's complaining? It's back to the PC for few hours, then a modest lunch, possibly a nap, more time at the computer, then dinner with friends. Do I miss going to the office every day? What do you think?
Jack Patterson retired as editorial-page editor of BUSINESS WEEK in 1987.
BY JACK PATTERSON