“You have to decide what makes you happy — and work ain’t it.” laughed A. Michael Stevens, during our interview discussing life after work. Retirement can mean a lot of things to a lot of people — and for Stevens, six years into his early retirement, travel takes center stage in this chapter of his life. Travel, though he says, isn’t the key — it’s finding your own joy.
After a decades-long career in Government administration and oversight, he decided to take early retirement after a heartbreaking 2016 — during which he lost his mother, sister, and husband in rapid succession. It may have cost him a piece of his pension, but by early 2017 Stevens was ready. “I knew I had enough to live comfortably,” he remarked, as we looked out the window of his condo in Courthouse with an enviable panoramic D.C. view.
Many don’t plan for retirement, and to Stevens, that’s the simplest piece of advice he can give to folks worried whether they will be able to afford a healthy post-job life. “You have to know what you need, and have a plan to get there.”
In addition to the condo in Arlington he bought with his late husband in 2008, Stevens rents a home in central Florida year-round, typically spending about four months at each annually. The remainder of the year he can typically be found traversing the globe on a variety of cruise ships. He doesn’t like cold winters, but he loves D.C. in the summer months, so he spends those here, “winters in Florida,” then spends the late winter and early spring on the seas. He recently booked his 99th cruise in 2024, to Antarctica and South America.
Stevens notes that many don’t really plan for retirement, never thinking about the income level they’ll need in order to maintain the lifestyle they desire in their senior years, and that keeps retirement out of reach for many.
But what’s his secret? Stevens is always on a trip, always smiling, and is constantly meeting new people. It’s not the retirement one typically imagines (or fears), where finances are tight, social interactions decline, and life slows down. On the contrary, he seems to have figured out how to thrive in his golden years.
Simply put, he makes sure he never wastes a single day — at least not entirely. When Stevens first retired, he made a simple rule that he’s stuck with. “I decided to make sure I did one productive thing every single day, whether getting groceries for the week, doing laundry… whatever” he shared, “and then I can do whatever I want — even if that’s doing nothing at all!”
Oxford University agrees, listing making every day meaningful as the most important thing one should do to thrive in retirement — and it’s one of the best things you can do (other than what your doctor recommends) in order to extend your life. Despite the financial concerns most have leading up to their retirement, 80 percent of seniors agree that the key to a happy retirement is health, not wealth. And mental health — in particular a feeling of purpose and meaning — plays an important role in keeping one’s overall health up.
All the trips sound wonderful, but Stevens is very clear that one doesn’t need to go on extensive vacations to find their perfect retirement. Every week, at least during his months in the DMV, he treks to Foundry United Methodist Church for their Sunday service (this past Sunday, he notes, was their 28th anniversary as an LGBTQ+ welcoming congregation), on nicer days walking the nearly four-mile trek across the Key Bridge through Georgetown to the church’s location east of Dupont Circle.
However you define joy, feel a sense of purpose, or find a supportive community, prioritize those things in retirement. Doctors, scientists, and Stevens agree: doing so will make your golden years longer, healthier, and full of excitement.
