“Are you retired yet?”
The question caught me off guard. It was not the query itself, I have reached my mid-60s, after all, but the underlying assumption it carried. Having practiced for over three decades, I found myself momentarily silenced by a word that feels entirely foreign to my current internal state.
As a psychiatrist, I have spent a lifetime listening to the narratives of others. Now, I find my own narrative being nudged toward a conclusion by a society that often equates aging with a slow fade into the background. But as I stand here, grey-bearded and wrinkled, I realize the reflection in the mirror does not match the vitality of the man within.
The myth of the withered physician
In our culture, there is a pervasive fear of aging, often projected onto older members of society as a way to distance ourselves from the inevitability of death. The medical community is not immune to this. We see mounting debates about “forced retirement” ages for mentors and seasoned clinicians, as if wisdom has an expiration date.
However, aging in medicine is not a process of withering; it is a process of ripening.
To ripen is to reach a state of peak utility. In my practice, I feel I am finally offering the best pieces of my insight. The years have softened the rigid certainties of youth, replacing them with a nuanced appreciation for the “lived experience” and the phenomenology of the patient sitting across from me. I no longer just see symptoms. I see a person navigating the existential tides of life.
The surprise of the stage
Recently, I stepped far outside the clinical suite and joined a community acting class. I went in with a bit of trepidation, but I was quickly surprised by how much I enjoyed the process. There is a profound vitality in the act of channeling the experiences of others into a story.
I found that the decades I spent observing the human condition, the trauma, the resilience, and the subtle shifts in the limbic system, provided a rich well to draw from. On stage, as in the clinic, I am not a passive observer. I am an active participant in the human drama. It turns out that the wrinkles on my face are not just signs of time passing, but tools for expression.
Lessons from the architects of the mind
This tension between societal perception and internal reality is as old as recorded history. Cicero addressed this beautifully in “De Senectute,” arguing that the fears of aging are manageable if one continues to engage the mind. Carl Jung spoke of the “afternoon of life,” where the goals of the morning, achievement and ego, give way to the pursuit of wisdom and meaning.
If you see me outside the clinic, I am lifting weights, struggling through the syntax of a new language, or rehearsing lines. These are not attempts to “stay young.” They are expressions of a current, active life.
Knowing the time to retire
There will come a day, experientially, when I will know it is time. I believe a physician possesses the self-awareness to recognize when they are no longer serving their community with the efficacy they deserve. But that day is not today.
For now, I want to share a secret with my younger colleagues: It only gets better. The opportunity to practice medicine on your own terms, with the depth of 30 years of context, is a singular privilege. We are uniquely positioned to serve humanity not just through our diagnoses, but through the ripening of our own humanity.
Let us stop asking if we are retired yet, and instead ask how we are continuing to grow.
Farid Sabet-Sharghi is a psychiatrist.
