DANGERS OF RETIREMENT.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXIII, 9 April 1926, Page 3

DANGERS OF RETIREMENT.

HOW TO USE LEISURE.

Many men, having eagerly looked forward for years to their retirement anil their release at last from daily routine, have only found their leisure savourless. For a few weeks it may bq pleasant not to have to set off after breakfast to the office; but within a month the leisured man is looking for an excuse to drop in at the office, just to feci again the familiar flow of active life around him (says tho ‘‘Yorkshire Post”). And instead of retirement proving restful and refreshing, tho victim or it finds that as soon a 6 his energies cease to be called upon they begin to decay. He find himself dull and listless, more easily tired than ever in his life before. These effects, partly physical and partly mental, have ofton been noted, but it is novel to find them confirmed by acturial investigation. Mr Cyril Warren, a well-known actuary on tho staff of a leading insurance company, has just arrived at this confirmation after a close study of mortality among pensioners from the staffs of banks and insurance firms. He has investigated the histories of 13,000 retired “black-coat’’ workers, and he lias found an exceptional high mortality during tho first year of retirementhigher than in almost any of the succeeding years. This is partially explicable by the fact that a certain number of workers retire through ill-health. But a much more potent reason, Mr Warren believes, is that “the effect of altering the mode of life, suddenly breaking with the habits of forty years or more, and having unlimited time with nothing to do, is literally to kill the man.” This conclusion is really a, great compiment to the efficiency of the human machine, and their is no doui»fi that, given healthy conditions, the human brain and body have been built for an immense output of energy which few of us ever achieve. If we could all work regularly with the feeling that our energies were being used to the last ounce, we should all be much happier and much healthier.

Some such idea is frequently enforced upon us by the doctors, who tell us that we habitually underwork our brains and under-exercise our bodies, and Mr Warren's discoveries are direct evidence that too much leisure is at least as fatal as over-strain. But the matter is hardly so simple, for the doctors are also in the habit of warning us against the growing speed of modern life, and the foolishness of business men who kill themselves in the unrelaxed l pursuit of wealth. What is the solution of his apparent paradox? The truth seems to be that tho one fatal condition for the human organism is monotony—either monotony of work or monotony of id'eness. We need not fear working tco l hard, but we may justly fear working too continuously. The human body iqust have output, but, iike all living organisms, it works best in a regular rhythm or output and repose.

Two of the most fatal tendencies in modern life aro that work is too monotonous and leisure too laborious. Tr ie creative work and true recreative leisure aro sadly rare, and the result is that a large proportion of our activities are flattened down to a sort of dead level, which neither satisfies human, energies nor restores them. Modern human beings, in short, aro becoming too much like machines, which ask for nothing better than a perfect regularity of not-too-rapid revolution. The business- man who collapses on retirement may have needed irr.ro leisure all his life What he does not need is a monotonous period of toil suddenly superseded by a still more monotonous period of leisure. The business’ men faced with eompulsory retirement at a certain age, would do welt to remember Mr Warren's advice, and look round for a hobby in good time. But it will be far better if, instead of his having to choose a hobby, the hobby can choose him. Retirement will then moan for him not freedom from work, but freedom to alternate work and leisure as he pleases. Then he will find that, even as his body grows old, his spirit will enjoy such an active youtlifulness as he was, perhaps, never known.