The New Commonsense Guide to Your 401(k): Rebuilding Your Portfolio From The Bottom up

Part V. PREPARING FOR CHANGE

The Next Step

Planning and saving well in advance make the transition to retirement much smoother. But it is how you handle the transition from a full-time employer that sponsors your 401(k) plan to the next phase of your life that will make the biggest difference in your satisfaction and happiness.

Perhaps that step leads to retirement. More likely though, you will be exchanging one kind of work for another. Please don't think that sounds dreary. Work is one of only a handful of essentials to a happy life—along with food, shelter, and love.

It's never too late to pursue your dreams through work. Brendan Gill, a former staff writer for the New Yorker, picked seventy-five famous and not-so-famous late bloomers, like Grandma Moses, for his book of portraits by the same name (Late Bloomers, Artisan 1998). "If the hour happens to be later than we may have wished, take heart!" Gill wrote. "So much more to be cherished is the bloom."

Over the last decade, more and more people continue to work past retirement. And to answer the needs of baby boomer retirees to keep a hand in, a number of "temporary employment" centers have opened to allow part-time retirees to continue to work on a project basis.

So what will you do in your post-corporate life? Make room for passion and for surprise. Perhaps you will turn a long-time hobby into a part-time business. Maybe build a second career. Your work need not be paid to be satisfying, of course. Do you hope to spend the bulk ...