Planning for Play

I spend a lot of time talking to retirees about what they can do to actually enjoy the retirement they’ve worked so hard to reach. The research coming out of the Oath Money & Meaning Institute keeps reflecting back that a meaningful retirement involves a lot more than making sure there’s enough money in the bank.

The irony is that people who want to truly thrive in retirement would be well-served to embody some of the characteristics of childhood, when life was built around play.

What absorbed you, before the world taught you to be productive? What did you reach for when nothing was required of you? What called you before you learned to be useful?

People don’t usually think about retirement as planning for play, but maybe they should.

There’s something worth understanding about what play actually is, because I don’t think we give it enough credit.

When you watch a child playing, what you’re really watching is someone in the process of figuring out what they have to offer. They’re building, organizing, performing, and creating because the making itself feels necessary.

The question worth sitting with isn’t just what you enjoyed as a child, but what you made. What you built, taught, grew, performed, organized, or created simply because the making felt like the most natural thing in the world. That thread didn’t retire when you did, it’s still in there somewhere.

Play, in the fullest sense, is how you find your way back to it. It doesn’t have to look like anything in particular. It might be painting, or gardening, or spending an afternoon with your grandchildren and letting them set the agenda entirely. It might be making art, learning to cook like a chef, or finally doing the thing you always told yourself you’d get to someday.

The active version of play where you’re absorbed in something, offering something, where time moves differently because you’re doing the thing that is most authentically you is available to you right now.

The way life felt at eight years old can feel that way again, except now you bring everything you’ve learned since, and you have more to give than you did then. The question is whether you’ll let yourself give it, outside the familiar structures that used to organize your days.

This is something we think about seriously at Oath. It’s not just how to protect what you’ve built, but how to help you actually use it. Financial security is the foundation. What you build on top of it is your life.

Play is part of that. Contribution is part of that. And remembering what genuinely lights you up is work that no financial plan can do on your behalf.

But it’s the most important work there is.

_{Disclaimer: This blog post provides general information about estate and financial planning and is not intended as legal or financial advice. It’s essential to consult with a qualified estate planning attorney and financial advisor to discuss your specific needs and create a plan that’s right for you.}