What if one of the most rewarding parts of retirement isn’t accumulating more, but discovering how good it feels to give things away? In this episode of Retirement Made to Order, Lee Gale explores the tradition of the potlatch and uses its spirit of generosity as inspiration for life after 50. She encourages retirees to consider letting go of possessions they no longer need and giving them to people who will appreciate them—but reminds us that generosity isn’t limited to material things. Whether it’s money, time, attention, help, or a simple compliment, Lee suggests that giving and “paying it forward” can bring as much satisfaction to the giver as it does to the person receiving it.
Lee Gale Gruen is a regular Podcast contributor for The Transitions Network. She is an actress, author, speaker, and blogger. She focuses on how retirees can customize their retirement to fit their own personalities, interests, and comfort level.
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“Reinventing Yourself in Your Retirement Years: Find Joy, Excitement, and Purpose After You Retire” https://tinyurl.com/33x9vmcx
“Adventures with Dad: A Father and Daughter’s Journey Through a Senior Acting Class” https://tinyurl.com/5d3yycjw
Click to see Full Transcript
Lee Gale Gruen (00:01.56)
Hello, welcome or welcome back to my podcast, Retirement Made to Order. I’m your host, Liga Gruen.
A potlatch, practiced by some Native Americans, is a tribal ceremony highlighted by the giving away of material and non-material things, such as titles. Status is achieved not by who has the most stuff, but by who gives away the most.
Potlatch began about 2,000 to 3,000 years ago, and several Native American tribes and First Nations of the Pacific Northwest Coast still practice it today. Yes, the participants sometimes took it to extremes, with the giving away part turning into a competition or expectation of a similar payback. However, let’s not throw out the concept of potating.
Potlatch with the bathwater. Maybe we can take the good parts.
We need to give away some of our stuff. Retirees especially accumulate and hoard way too much. Must we have more and more possessions, toys, money, yada yada? When is the time to divest rather than invest? As the saying goes: you can’t take it with you.
Lee Gale Gruen (01:34.72)
Of course, as a teenager who thought she knew everything, I’d point that out to my father, and he would respond, Then I’m not going. Dad did, however, become more generous as he aged and
Invite family members, friends, and even strangers over to be the recipients of your unneeded possessions. Give lovingly to someone who might want it, need it, and will appreciate it much better than the walls of your closets and garage have done over the years they have been housing it. If you don’t have stuff you can give away,
Then give away money, your time, or even intangibles, such as compliments, attention, help, advice. go sparingly on that one. Giving away feels good to the giver as well as the receiver.
Are you familiar with the idea of helping others when you can’t repay the benefactor of kind acts done in your behalf?
That is embodied in the expression, pay it forward. The potlatch I’m suggesting is a version of that. Someone in your life, sometime, probably gave to you. One way to reciprocate is to give to someone else. The winner in that competition will be you.
Lee Gale Gruen (03:14.516)
I’m Ligale Gruen. I hope you’ll visit me again here on my podcast, Retirement Made to Order, hosted by the Transitions Network. I will be posting new podcasts each week. Feel free to contact me if you want to comment on any of my podcasts. You’ll find my email address in the information that follows, or in the description section at the beginning of each of my podcasts.
along with links to my website, my blog, and my two books available on Amazon.com. Goodbye for now.