It should be quite reasonable to expect that when we arrive at the threshold of our golden years we are flushed with a true sense of our own value, brimming with a certain fulfillment and quiet patience for life. Most hope to have assimilated life’s experiences to the point whereby love, harmony and reconciliation sit comfortably in our daily lives. But what do we say when confusion still lingers when we gaze into the mirror. Not knowing where to look is the problem we face when we finally have the time to seek out our true identity.

One’s identity can be a bewildering mix of masks worn throughout life. Our social identity can quickly transition in different circumstances. How we act with friends, lovers, enemies or work colleagues can shift easily. If we tend towards identifying ourselves as someone who lacks money for example or without certain standards of beauty, then we can struggle to understand the person who stares back at us in the reflection. These masks that we have become so adept at wearing each day have helped us fit in and get stuff done, to line things up that will help us succeed in life. Like most things, there is always a use-by date.

“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.” –Carl Jung

Retiring can potentially rock your emotional foundations and your well-oiled mechanism for maintaining self-control can be affected. Most of us would probably prefer not to have this conversation at all, it’s uncomfortable. It’s far easier in most cases to remain on stage with your mask on, cast in the same role by your inner director, for no one really likes it when an actor takes on a new stage role. This is new territory and it’s not unusual for our confidence to fly out the window, our very beliefs are at stake. Understanding how identity works may come down to having to reinvent yourself and that takes courage.

We have so many magical moments in life, memories that carry us forever and nurture our spirits well into old age. For many those past lives fit comfortably into the present and there is little need for more, memories suffice. With the loss of independence that can accompany retirement, our habits tend to fall away or get terribly stuck, a numbness is revealed, never comfortable, but also a true source of reflection, like finding gold. The present is rich with meaning and can sustain us through trying times, through the many difficult decisions we must make, if we can get out of our own way long enough to look at our experience we can view the person we truly are, not the imagined one.

Some say this could be the mask of the warrior. Those who dare to ask what cannot be answered. Through millennia our important spiritual teachers have always taught using a clouded language that requires us to dig deeper to understand what the words mean for each of us. “The kingdom of God is within” – “There is no-self” – “Purify yourself” – Common in most if not all religions is that we exist through God’s grace. Buddhism is different in that it suggests we are not created by a God but more akin to the energy that is impermanent and forever moving into balance with the ultimate reality. Either way, most religions give us a signpost to where we should start our journey, our road to authenticity.

Discovering your identity in retirement could be one of the biggest challenges you will face, on the other hand, it may not even be on your radar and completely irrelevant. The current global environment has offered up way more challenges than most of us had ever dreamed or planned for, imagining that we are always in charge of our personality is dangerous, small changes can then easily push us around. We can begin to change our relationship with the world when we understand that freedom comes from not having a fixed identity at all. Every label that we give ourselves and others keep us restrained and limits us to a narrow view. Even a long term friendship can fray over things that in the end don’t really matter, especially when we stay fixed in our own minds. 

Even very capable people can become confused, frustrated and worried when circumstances are beyond their control when conditions change. Your identity can be a very powerful and motivating force in life, it fuels your achievements but then retirement comes along and offers a new challenge but only if you are ready. Identifying which parts of our well-crafted and inaccurate self-identity is getting in the way, blocking us from taking up a new position, is essential for our propulsion forward into the stars, off to new horizons, learning to breathe again without a mask.