Steve Weiner

Steve Weiner of Piedmont, Calif., opted to retire early from a distinguished career as a college administrator and policy expert. Weiner, now in his 60s, and his wife currently volunteer recording books for the blind.

Photo: Alex Harris

Retirement creeps up on you. I must have started thinking about it in '90 or '91 – the first time I went to see a financial planner. However, the major single event in this process was a sabbatical. My wife and I went on a six-week trip to New Zealand and we talked about retirement. When we got back, she returned to work, but I had six more weeks to think. I bought books about financial planning. I began to get more into the nuts and bolts of what we'd been spending and our resources.

A critical aspect of retirement planning is estimating how long you expect to live. I remember sitting at the kitchen table with a simple actuarial table showing, 'If you are a man of this age, you can expect to live this much longer.' I decided to take a conservative view. According to the table, being 55 at the time, I estimated that I'd live another 30 years. Then I calculated what proportion of an 85-year lifetime those 30 years represented.

When I realized that I had lived two-thirds of my life, I was immediately struck by two very strong feelings. On the one hand, I panicked; I had lived two-thirds of my life! But on the other hand, I had 30 years left! Assuming reasonable health during most of those years, that's an immense amount of time. I was struck with how much was over, but even more by how much was left.

In the midst of all this retirement planning, I discovered a tremendous number of books with titles like How to Grow Rich and Retire. Shelf after shelf on how to invest, how to be rich, how to save on insurance, but little, if any, advice about what one can do with this third of life, where earning a salary is no longer the center of things. In particular, I was looking for something recounting the experiences of other people. I found very little advice or examples about how people could use their new freedom to do something worthwhile.

I found few role models in my own life either. Mostly there've been role models of the reverse. Some of my friends and colleagues still derive great meaning from putting on their suit and tie and going into the office every day. I think that is wonderful. But in most cases what I've observed are college presidents, who, having worked 60 to 80 hours a week for years, really couldn't approach leaving the office of the presidency as anything other than going off a cliff and into a dark abyss, the depths of which could not be calculated.

So I did not find in my immediate experience many folks who said, 'I'm going to now base my time on that which is going to give me a sense of contribution. A sense of involvement, and of community.'

Shortly after coming back from New Zealand, I went to Sacramento and had breakfast with my board chair. I told him that I had made a decision to retire in two years [at 57]. Probably the best advice came from a fellow who told me after he retired he took six months and did absolutely nothing. He said 'You probably don't realize it, but you're tired. Get some rest and relaxation at first. Don't press things.'

The first feeling was of liberation. Being able to wake up without an alarm clock telling you when you should wake up. I think very shortly though, the flip side becomes more evident: the absence of deadlines; the absence of meetings, of the sense that you must do something. I realized how deeply wired in my nervous system was 40 years of meeting deadlines. It was strange to wake up in the morning and think, 'I'm going to pretty much do what I feel like doing.'

It's been often said, and I think it's true: One of the great virtues of growing older is that you feel the burden of ambitions, much of which proved to be unrealistic, being lifted off of your back. Perhaps feeling less than you might have earlier in life, that you have to prove something.

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I also realized the colleges and universities where I was under consideration were places that did not stand for things that I thought were particularly important. These were places that typically said, 'We are #35 on the U.S. News and World Report ranking and we want to be #22.' And we want you to work 90 hours a week for the next 10 years to make that happen. And I put those two things together, and I realized I didn't want to make that sacrifice. I mean, if you say 'Yes, we are going to register and empower African-Americans to vote in the South', that's worth 90 or 100 hours a week! – but not to go from #35 to #22.

I had been talking past myself, avowing goals that were directly in contradiction. And it was at that point I said to myself, 'You know what, I've wanted desperately to be a college or university president for at least five years, but now that I have gotten close, I don't think I want to do it!' At least not at the places likely to ask me. That is an ambition whose disappearance I can very precisely locate....The other ambitions, they disappeared gradually over time. [Laughter]

Now, I actively struggle with what it means to be successful in retirement. My entire life, my feeling has been that you have to make a difference in the world. This can be a positive, as well as a destructive notion. Having lived as many years as I have, I realize that there are few of us who can reasonably expect to leave a significant mark on society. It's like: 'Oh, yeah, we remember Steve. He did a wonderful job. What's for lunch!?' [Laughs]

I don't feel unengaged or inactive these days. But I would like to have at least one more passionate involvement in something I care about deeply. I recognize that this probably sounds contradictory – being more of a spectator than on the field now. But that notion of a passionate involvement is still very much alive in me, as is the desire for intellectual stimulation, for feeling my mind is at work, for working with people who are lively.

A friend of mine jokes that retirement is the weekend that never ends. Actually, I've never had the experience of twiddling my thumbs or being bored out of my mind. What's been much more difficult is to employ my skills and energy as a volunteer. I thought that if a person with my experience came to an organization and told them that I was here to give them a chunk of my time, and all they have to do is make it interesting for me, I thought the response would be enthusiastic.

But the nonprofit world is not as permeable as I expected. I've got to assume that part of it may be a reaction to me. However, it seems that as much is the mindset of organizations, a certain reluctance, hesitation, lack of experience involving older people. I don't understand this very well. I've talked to people my age in similar circumstances who have much to contribute but can't even get their phone calls returned.

There are so many retired people out there who could be mobilized to do worthwhile things. I think there's an understanding that an older person can be a tutor or a mentor. What needs to be shown is what people can do more broadly. Something for people to look at and say, 'Wow, that may not have changed the world, but it changed a part of it.' People will say, 'That's something I'd like to be involved with.' It may not be the majority of people, but, given the size of the older population, even if you involve a small portion of the people around you, that's a very large potential force.

The energy is there, but it needs to be organized. The road is there, but it's rocky. It has to be paved. That can happen in the next five to 10 years. My sense is we are just beginning to crawl with this issue. And so I think that the experience I'm having is probably not atypical. It's like being on the leading edge, like those who were the first in our families to arrive in college and had to explain to those back home what the experience was all about.

All of this does compete with the notion of the third phase of life being back to toys. How much can you consume? How much can you play? I find myself resisting this view of retirement. I want to say to my retired colleagues, 'This is supposed to be fun – and worthwhile.' What I hear the culture saying is, "Yes, we're serious: we're seriously irresponsible."

Steve Weiner describes himself as "vocationally celibate." Now in his early 60s, he opted to retire early (in 1996) from a distinguished career as a college administrator and policy expert. A Ph.D. from Stanford University, he was a staff member for the Kerner Commission, a professor at Stanford, Dean of the School of Education at Berkeley, Provost and Dean of the Faculty at Mills College, and director of the commission responsible for accrediting California's colleges and universities. He is married to an attorney and has two daughters – one of them a teacher, the other an actress and writer. Weiner and his wife currently volunteer recording books for the blind. In addition, he serves on the boards of the Food Bank of Alameda County and the East Bay Conservation Corps and consults in the area of higher education. Weiner also serves as Director of Special Projects to Civic Ventures and lives in Piedmont, Calif.