I'm now unretired

I officially declare myself unretired.

I've retired from being retired.

It doesn't make sense to say that I'm retired anymore when what I do every day doesn't feel like the retirement manual written by my parents' generation and their parents' generation.

My un-retirement is a template for Baby Boomers everywhere. We are redefining retirement as we rewrite the manual on how to do it.

Here is a pretty typical example of how "retired" is defined: "A retired person is an older person who has left his or her job and has usually stopped working completely."

More and more you see and hear how us older persons are continuing to work, either in our jobs or in new jobs, and a lot of us have not stopped working completely.

The redefinition of retirement is driven by economic needs, to be sure. Survey after survey shows that as a group Baby Boomers haven't saved or invested nearly enough to retire to life without working.

But there is also a personal need to be un-retired, to not simply withdraw from life and society and the grind we regard as work. We still want to contribute, we're driven by a desire to show the value in what we have to say and what we can do in the time we have left to do it.

Three Junes ago, I thought of myself as retired because I had retired from my job.

I called myself retired because, at the time, I liked the sound of it. But I knew there was still more work -- albeit different work -- to be done.

My work schedule is now as full as ever.

It is a work schedule defined by me and controlled by me according to the deadlines and expectations of the people with whom I have freelance contracts.

The definition of work hasn't changed among Boomers. Work is work. It is a task to be done. It still requires our time, treasure and talent, and it doesn't matter that the work is for yourself.

I'm chief blogging officer for my one-man company. Certainly it's a different kind of work. I can commute to the office in my underwear. I take a break and play the guitar or piano. I rearrange my writing duties to spend a part of the day at the gym or at the beach or skiing.

The work can involve nights and weekends, which it rarely did when I was someone else's employee. Work doesn't necessarily have to be an office. It doesn't have to be 9 to 5. It doesn't mean having to wear big boy clothes every day.

As Baby Boomers redefine retirement, perhaps they're also redefining work in the process.