SOMETIMES even the recent past can seem a very long time ago. Back in 1995 Jobfile carried a piece on the ages of man, suggesting that old age should be split in two. Misguidedly I suggested that with increasing access to early retirement, a new age of leisure would precede one’s dotage of dribbling and decay.

How wrong can you be? Early retirement is now all but a pipe dream for private-sector workers and many pensioners will have little choice but to go on working in some capacity once they do finally retire.

Perhaps this is not what US commentator David Brooks had in mind when he coined the phrase “active retirement”. He suggested that, where there used to be four clear life stages (childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old age), there are now six: childhood, adolescence, odyssey, adulthood, active retirement and old age.

These six new ages of man are pretty self-explanatory except “odyssey”, which is meant to represent the ever-widening transition between studenthood and adult life — when one gap year will follow another and another. The result is that people enter their thirties without feeling grown up, lacking a partner or children, and still wandering from one career to another.

Depending on your point of view, this may sound like aimless drifting or a great way to have a good time. But what’s certain is that more and more young people are tucking a qualification under their belt and heading off for adventure.

A recent survey by one of the Big Four accountants found that more of their newly qualified staff wanted to travel rather than join a rival firm.

And that would probably be the best advice for anyone keen to set out on an odyssey; they should get some form of qualification or skill first because once they do want to settle down, it will be difficult to find many career doors open to them.

Of course, the eternal youth in me would like to think I could plan on having another odyssey, but more likely an active retirement beckons.

That does have a few things going for it — not least, avoiding the monotony of enforced idleness, or, as Tom Farmer once put it: “The problem with retirement is that you never get a day off.”

business@sunday-times.co.uk

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