Do humans need a certain level of stress? Do we look for it? Do we create it? Perhaps it’s an evolutionary trait that keeps us from becoming complacent, ensuring we don’t get surprised by something bigger and hungrier. Stress keeps us aware. Without it, would we survive?

I woke up this morning with that familiar pit of stress in my stomach. I’ve goofed off enough that I now have a work item I absolutely must complete today. It will only take an hour or two, yet I’ve delayed it for no good reason until this eleventh hour, which is what’s causing the stress.

It’s almost laughable how minor it is—a work action I could do in my sleep. But because it’s an item I need to deliver to people I don’t know, and because I’ve delayed it, the stress surfaces.

Why am I stressed? I did it to myself. Is it because I need some stress? Does it make me feel needed? Do I take something small and inflate its importance just to feel better about doing it? I kind of think so.

The Age-Related Shift in Focus

I’ve watched older people—my parents, my in-laws—and noticed how they seem to stress about smaller things as they age. In their younger years, these issues never bothered them, or at least not to a visible degree.

They have no job stress and are financially secure, yet as they get older, minor things start to create worry. Going to a big city becomes a little scary. Driving outside their normal area is a firm “no thank you.” Worry about the news and the state of the world grows over time. The major events and challenges of their lives have passed, and they have been successful. The kids are well launched, and money isn’t an issue. But they seem to need to find something to focus their energy on.

This happens even to friends I thought it wouldn’t affect. An older friend who was always up for anything has slowed down, finding that doing something new has become just too stressful. Over time, we all get set in our ways, and anything outside our norm brings on stress.

I think it is true: we need some stress. My creating stress at work is no different than my retired friends who still maintain a higher baseline level of anxiety.

Retirement: The Change, Not the Cure

I had been operating under the assumption that retiring would remove the low-level stress I have in life. The goal of retirement, in part, was to shut off this work stress—to simply eliminate it. But what it will really do is change my stress. It will morph into something new. Without a focused pursuit, the low-level energy that used to motivate me at work will likely be taken over by anxiety, simply because my brain needs something to process. I will need a new project

less Death Star – more hammock stand

What will replace the work stress? Will money dominate my thoughts? Likely for a while, regardless of how well we retire. Marriage stress? Being together 24/7 will be new, so I imagine that comes with its own challenges. Watching my kids struggle through their careers will be stressful, and aging parents are definitely a concern.

In the end, I think I’ve been fooling myself that retirement will eliminate the main stress in my life. Retiring will only give me the space to have other stresses move up the priority stack.

The key to a successful retirement transition isn’t eliminating stress; it’s choosing what to stress about—a new purpose, a new project. When I retire, I am not shutting off the need for a challenge; I’m earning the right to decide what those challenges will be. My financial security gives me the freedom to swap the work stress I was required to take on for the stress I decide to pursue.

And I will need to figure out how to deal with this new stress. Oh no. I should start worrying about that.