Planning Your Time in Retirement

How to Cultivate a Leisure Lifestyle to Suit Your Needs and Interests

Robert A. Stebbins

Much of what is written about getting old has a negative feel to it, which is certainly not entirely unjustified. Health may begin to fail. Finances may become tighter as income dwindles or stops altogether. Family and friends may move away or move on. But the retirement years do not have to be negative or bleak. Within this “dark scenario,” a positive existence is possible. Planning Your Time in Retirement focuses on the variety of free-time activities available to retirees as related to their physical, social, and economic situation in old age, helping readers find out what their passions are, what the possibilities might be, and how to cultivate their own leisure lifestyle.

For some retirees, a post-work existence consisting of fun works well, for they have managed to shape an interesting casual leisure lifestyle based on easygoing activities that make them happy. Seldom included in the popular image of leisure, however, are other types of leisure that are also widely available to retirees. Regardless of means, the retirement years can consist of activities and pastimes that fulfill the interests and pursuits of any retiree. A variety of exciting leisure activities exists, which retirees may pursue within their financial, physical, mental, and geographic limits. This book provides a guide—the serious leisure perspective—for exploring these activities and choosing those that fit one’s tastes, aptitudes, and abilities. At its most appealing, a leisure lifestyle includes a balance of easy-to-do casual interests as well as serious ones that require knowledge, effort, and perseverance. For some, enjoyment and fulfillment may come from engaging in volunteer work, while for others it may involve leisure activities from which they gain some form of payment. By employing the notion of positive simplicity—simple living in the domain of leisure—many people at this stage of life can delight in these final years. While time and money cannot be ignored, finding those activities that allow for engagement, reward, and simplicity can result in days, even years, of leisure that is meaningful, enjoyable, healthy, and empowering.

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 184 • Trim: 6 x 8¾

978-1-4422-2159-8 • Hardback • September 2013 • $53.00 • (£41.00)

978-1-4422-4870-0 • Paperback • March 2015 • $30.00 • (£25.00)

978-1-4422-2160-4 • eBook • September 2013 • $28.00 • (£19.99)

Subjects: Self-Help / Aging, Business & Economics / Personal Finance / Retirement Planning

Planning Your Time in Retirement

How to Cultivate a Leisure Lifestyle to Suit Your Needs and Interests

Hardback

Paperback

eBook

Summary

Much of what is written about getting old has a negative feel to it, which is certainly not entirely unjustified. Health may begin to fail. Finances may become tighter as income dwindles or stops altogether. Family and friends may move away or move on. But the retirement years do not have to be negative or bleak. Within this “dark scenario,” a positive existence is possible. Planning Your Time in Retirement focuses on the variety of free-time activities available to retirees as related to their physical, social, and economic situation in old age, helping readers find out what their passions are, what the possibilities might be, and how to cultivate their own leisure lifestyle.

For some retirees, a post-work existence consisting of fun works well, for they have managed to shape an interesting casual leisure lifestyle based on easygoing activities that make them happy. Seldom included in the popular image of leisure, however, are other types of leisure that are also widely available to retirees. Regardless of means, the retirement years can consist of activities and pastimes that fulfill the interests and pursuits of any retiree. A variety of exciting leisure activities exists, which retirees may pursue within their financial, physical, mental, and geographic limits. This book provides a guide—the serious leisure perspective—for exploring these activities and choosing those that fit one’s tastes, aptitudes, and abilities. At its most appealing, a leisure lifestyle includes a balance of easy-to-do casual interests as well as serious ones that require knowledge, effort, and perseverance. For some, enjoyment and fulfillment may come from engaging in volunteer work, while for others it may involve leisure activities from which they gain some form of payment. By employing the notion of positive simplicity—simple living in the domain of leisure—many people at this stage of life can delight in these final years. While time and money cannot be ignored, finding those activities that allow for engagement, reward, and simplicity can result in days, even years, of leisure that is meaningful, enjoyable, healthy, and empowering.

Details

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 184 • Trim: 6 x 8¾

978-1-4422-2159-8 • Hardback • September 2013 • $53.00 • (£41.00)

978-1-4422-4870-0 • Paperback • March 2015 • $30.00 • (£25.00)

978-1-4422-2160-4 • eBook • September 2013 • $28.00 • (£19.99)

Subjects: Self-Help / Aging, Business & Economics / Personal Finance / Retirement Planning

Author

Robert A. Stebbins, FRSC, received his PhD in sociology in 1964 from the University of Minnesota. He is now Faculty Professor and Professor Emeritus at the University of Calgary, Canada. Stebbins is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, Academy of Leisure Sciences, and World Leisure Academy. He is also an elected member of Phi Beta Kappa, Macalester College Chapter. The serious leisure perspective, which he pioneered, now has its own website at www.seriousleisure.net. He is the author of several books including The Idea of Leisure: First Principles and Personal decisions in the public square: Beyond problem into a positive sociology, and others.

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
1: What’s at Stake in Retirement?
2: Leisure for Retirees
3: Amateur Activities
4: Hobbies
5: Volunteering
6: Leisure: Casual and Project-Based
7: Planning a Leisure Lifestyle
Appendix: Nature Challenge Activities
Bibliography and Resources
Index
Biographical Note

Reviews

Planning Your Time in Retirement covers a topic of ever-increasing importance from a unique perspective. As a professor who has taught courses on the topic of leisure and aging for over 30 years, I especially recommend this book to those who are planning to retire within the next five to ten years. It could help make the difference between a successful retirement and the depression that so many professionals experience shortly after they retire.
— Michael J. Leitner, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Recreation and Parks Management at California State University, Chico

Planning Your Time in Retirement is a book only Robert Stebbins could write. Not only has Stebbins had a highly successful career as a social scientist, rigorously studying leisure at its best, but he is well-known as a gifted story-teller able to communicate his insights by vividly bringing to life the people he studies. The scientist and the story-teller are evident in this book. Stebbins does a wonderful job of describing ways in which serious, project-based, and casual leisure can be mixed and balanced with the demands of the rest of life to create meaningful retirement lifestyles. The ideas he presents help readers understand the diverse ways in which they can construct lifestyles that contribute to successful aging consistent with their financial resources and social and psychological needs.
— Roger C. Mannell, Ph.D., professor of Leisure Studies and Public Health; director of RBC Retirement Research Centre, University of Waterloo

Robert A. Stebbins explains how those nearing retirement (or those who are retired) might achieve a "life of leisure." So often, we as leisure scholars bemoan the lack of understanding of the benefits of leisure in society today and we encourage people to learn more about the value of leisure. This book teaches the retiree or soon to be retiree about various forms of leisure and how to cultivate a leisure lifestyle. Stebbins presents the principles of his serious leisure framework alongside his philosophy of "positive simplicity" to show retirees how they can make the most of the opportunities presented to them by the freedom from work and other responsibilities afforded people in later life. So rather than dreading retirement, Stebbins encourages retirees not only to embrace this time, but also provides them with a lot of good suggestions as to how they might go about it.
— Heather Gibson, professor of Tourism, Recreation and Sport Management, University of Florida