So, what will your life be like when you reach “pension age”, when you’re “allowed to retire”, when you can “draw your pension”? Have you assumed the state will take care of you?

We’ve evolved a language of dependency and assumption over the past century that seems to absolve us of responsibility. But it’s not like that. It was never like that and never meant to be like that.

In the beginning, the UK state pension, although non-contributory, was means-tested. It was paid to those over 70 at a time when you could expect to live another nine years or so and was worth about one fifth of the average wage for a male manual worker.

The state pension was always intended to alleviate poverty, not to provide a comfortable living.

Fast-forward to today. The current state pension (for a single person in tax year 2026-27) is £12,548 per year. The amount required for a “minimum standard of living” is £13,900 and, crucially, this doesn’t include any rent or mortgage costs – it assumes you’ve already paid off a mortgage.

Despite our cosy language, we can’t expect the state to provide for our old age. We need to take a sovereign professional approach and do it ourselves.

Over on LinkedIn, a friend and former Microsoft colleague, Jamie Rawlings, hosted an interesting discussion on the “uncomfortable by design” life stage of middlescence – a time for “grace and space”. Along with fellow, former Softie Charbel Fakhoury he talks about the stage of life when thoughts turn from “What do I do?” to “Who am I, now?” with all the accompanying restlessness and sense of dissatisfaction. It’s a fascinating, 45-minute chat which, hopefully, you can view, here.

Jamie now has the delightful title of The Liminal Coach. You may find him wandering along shorelines, the edges of dark forests, or indeed on the marches of middlescence.

I’ve always loved the concept of liminal space – “between or belonging to two different places, states, etc.” as the Cambridge Dictionary has it – standing on the threshold of a different place. It can be the ocean shoreline or the edge of a dark forest. In literature there’s often a boundary – The Wall in Game of Thrones or in Neil Gaiman’s Stardust. The Hedge in The Fellowship of the Ring (at the beginning of chapter 6) sticks in my mind. Despite the small strangenesses already encountered by the hobbits, it is the hedge, and the old forest beyond, that really marks the transition to a different world beyond the cosy Shire. Maybe Platform 9 3/4, King’s Cross Station is a liminal space. In China Miéville’s strange novel The City & The City, everywhere feels liminal.

Sometimes, liminal is between two states – land and sea, life and death, familiar and strange – and sometimes it’s between points in time.

Photos: Andrew Munro

“Nothing in war,” Moshe Dayan said, “happens in a straight line.”

… You and I must teach ourselves to be comfortable working in darkness and in crooked lines.

Sage words from Steven Pressfield’s Writing Wednesdays.

Photo by gokhan polat on Unsplash