The “R” word.

As I am faced with what society politely calls “retirement”, I’ve realized something liberating. I don’t actually want to “retire”. I want to “re-live” for at least another 30+ years. After more than 40+ years in the advertising-design world, I’ve spent a lifetime selling ideas, shaping brands, and convincing people that their logo needed to be smaller or that the headline had to be emotional. It’s been an incredible ride, but now, instead of slowing down, I feel like I’m speeding up. In the right direction.

Funny enough, my high school aptitude test tried to warn me many, many decades ago. It suggested I become a nurse, doctor, teacher or artist. I ignored most of that advice, except for the artist and teacher part, and jumped headfirst into advertising-design. Now, as I look ahead, it feels like my younger self left breadcrumbs that I’m only noticing and picking up now.

The truth is, retirement doesn’t have to mean the end of a career. It means finding something new that challenges you differently. Advertising-design sharpened my creativity, empathy, storytelling, and problem-solving skills, and those tools don’t expire just because you start collecting a pension. Instead, they become catalysts for new possibilities. I find myself drawn toward teaching, volunteering, healthy living, and acting. Roles where empathy matters as much as experience. Who knows? Maybe that aptitude test was right all along, and there’s still time to channel a bit of nurse or doctor energy into this next chapter. I just found out that as an “old geezer”, I can attend some universities tuition free. Hmmm. Dr. Kamachi has a ring to it? Now that’s incentive. At the very least, I can apply my passions of health, humor and creativity wherever I land next. Creativity in my past profession has always been about making life clearer and better. Why stop now?

What makes this stage of life exciting is that the pressure is gone. Earlier in life, career choices felt permanent, like one wrong move would ruin everything. Now, experimentation feels like freedom. I can try things simply because they interest me. I can coach, consult, volunteer, play music, write, or even start a completely new career such as acting, without worrying about climbing ladders or collecting titles. Experience becomes an asset rather than baggage. And oddly enough, I feel stronger with age. Not just physically, but mentally. I know what matters, what doesn’t, and how to laugh when things go sideways. Like I’ve always said, we’re given one chance on this “rock” so we had better make the most of it.

So instead of retiring, I’m re-living. Re- learning. Re-imagining. Retirement, to me, is just permission to redesign life, a career, using everything I’ve learned so far. The benefits are enormous. Continued purpose, mental stimulation, social connection, staying healthy and the joy of discovery that many of us lost somewhere between deadlines and mortgages is just applied to another goal. Or in my case, goals. If life is a creative project, and I’m convinced it is, then retirement isn’t the final chapter. Retirement is the creative brief where you finally get to create exactly what you want. And this time, the client is me.

Cheers, mark.