That's men for you Padraig O'Morain's guide to men's healthHe follows his wife around the supermarket, looking lost. He occasionally disagrees with her choice of groceries. She looks impassive. You sense that behind the mask she is fed up and would like to be left alone to get on with the shopping which she has been doing quite competently, thank you, for the past 30 years.
He is retired, and lost. Perhaps once he was king of his own domain in some company or government department. Perhaps juniors quaked at the mention of his name. Perhaps he moved goods and services around the world or sat behind the manager's desk at a bank, overseeing millions in loans.
Now here he is, following the missus around a supermarket for want of anything better to do.
So, what are you going to do when you don't have to work anymore, or when you reach retirement age and have to leave whether you like it or not? You need to consider this question whether you intend to retire at 30 after you make your millions or whether you are going to soldier on to 65 or 70 or whatever the retirement age will be when you get there.
Suppose you cannot afford to buy that yacht? Suppose you are not a member of the most exclusive golf club in the country? What will you do?
Actually, this question really only matters if you are making one particular mistake about how you see yourself. That mistake is to see your work as your identity.
If you get your greatest sense of belonging and of achievement at work, then watch out. Make sure you are also cultivating your relationships outside work. Make sure also that there are things you do outside work which give you that sense of achievement.
This is especially worth remembering if you work for a company which has a culture of 12-hour days and of bringing work home in the evenings and at weekends.
If you are caught up in this sort of situation, bear in mind that the job will not always be there.
Any investment you make now in your life outside work will pay off in the end.
You also need to consider the effect your retirement will have on your wife or partner if you have one. If she has been out of the paid workforce for a time, then having you in the house all day will change her world, and not for the better if you're wandering around the house lost. And if you both work up to 65, then suddenly being together all day every day may not be an unalloyed joy.
Plan to give each other a little space. For God's sake, don't follow her around the supermarket.
If your relationship with your partner is in a bad state, and if you are facing retirement, you would be a wise man to work to improve the relationship if you're going to be spending a lot of time together.
After all, you will no longer have the job to escape into when things are tense at home.
There are men who regard retirement as the end of all social activity. They go home and sit down and wait to die. Even if that is what you actually want to do, consider whether this might also be the end of your partner's social life. Is it fair that you will no longer go out with her and that you expect all invitations to be turned down?
There are many antidotes to inactivity. Go get another job, part-time or full-time, or get involved with a voluntary organisation or join an Active Retirement Association (the Federation of Active Retirement Associations is at 01-6792142) or go into politics or travel the world or go back to college.
One way to plan for retirement is to do a retirement planning course. You can find out about such courses from the Retirement Planning Council of Ireland (01-6613139). It organises courses and talks around the country and going to one of them could enhance the rest of your life.
pomorain@irish-times.ie
Padraig O'Morain is a journalist and counsellor accredited by the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy.