My father had what I would have called the great good fortune to be retrenched at 57. After nearly 40 years with the one company. The retrenchment was due to the closure of a joint venture plant which had reached the end of its economic life. So there was no shame in it, and I don't think he felt any. His long service with the company made the retrenchment financially advantageous to him.
But over the next few years I watched my dad's internal clock slowly wind down, and twenty years later it hardly ticks at all. Dad had a bit of a part-time job for a while, but it seemed to fizzle out. As best I could work out, he didn't really need the money at the time, and there didn't appear to be anything left to fire him up, or keep him busy beyond counting the collection plates after church on Sunday mornings.
I find myself in a similar kind of position of "not really needing the money." My life joint venture partner might well respond "what's need got to do with it?" But I have caught myself once or twice, recently, thinking that it's pretty relaxing spending an hour to read the paper thoroughly in the morning, then put in a solid couple of hours in the garden before having a coffee in the village.
During one of those recent thorough newspaper readings, I came across a reference to Oscar Niemeyer, the famous architect, "still busy at work at 102." That, and a few other nudges from different directions, have set me thinking about what is the spark which must keep glowing, to make "semi-retirement" the vibrant, valuable, worthwhile stage it ought to be? A very relevant question at 56, with plenty of "lifestyle options" available to keep me fully, though not perhaps meaningfully, entertained.
The drivers which I am about to share are of course very personal ones, and unavoidability tinted with the colours of a later-in-life spiritual journey of which work is just a part. But here they are, for the record if nothing else.
Mortality
I have been to funerals over the past few years of good people who have left this earth in their 40s, 50s and early 60's. There are no guarantees. While the statistics say I have 21.9 years left here, in coming to an average there are always low scores to offset the big numbers. I still feel the pressure of things in my head, in my history, which I think are worth extracting, crystallising, applying in new circumstances, and passing on to others. Lessons which I may have learned at someone else's expenses, and are thereby tinged with a karmic obligation. Hard-earned insights which might save someone else pain and suffering if shared. What if the 21.9 years are 10, or 5, or 6 months, or tomorrow? Things often feel like they are queuing up inside me for dissemination, and I have to get as many of them out, and shared, and applied, as fast as possible. Just in case.
Service
It seems to be more common these days that people in their middle years have a view about "giving something back". To me there are a couple of supervening reasons to keep going in service of meaningful goals. The first one is gratitude. I've received plenty of lucky breaks in life and garnered lots of advantages. To undertake worthwhile things helps balance the celestial ledger. The second one is something that the Buddhists call "right livelihood", which asks us to love our world through our work. Aligning "love for the world" with our jobs when we are full tilt at our careers isn't always a simple process. I have found that there is inevitably greater scope for this kind of work/world love alignment once the imperatives of career advancement and family support diminish – like, it's never too late. Kahlil Gibran said: "All work is empty save when there is love, for work is love made visible."
The dividend from this alignment is the well known outcome that when you give something back and help others, you can't avoid helping yourself.
Purpose
I've been very fortunate over the past 7 or 8 years to have had mentors who have shown me the power of having a considered, articulated, explicit purpose in life, and who have helped me to discover my own purpose. At a vocational level, that purpose is to help people and organisations find clarity and direction. Just to be pursuing those "lifestyle options" will not be enough to help deliver on my purpose. Purpose stands as a measure against which both the big issues, and the small stuff, can be compared.
Renewal
Being involved in real work means I spend time with smart young people. Their talent, their energy, their ideas, spark me up and put the kind of charge in my batteries that I can't find in books, blogs or discussions with my peers. I'm working with one young star at the moment in a context she calls "thought partnering". That is a generous description in my view because she's actually showing me how to do something outside my current skill set. Hopefully I am adding something back in the thought partnering process. Another renewal effect comes from working as part of a team, instead of just running a solo operation, and feeling the rewards of shared endeavour.
Doing it anyway
There is a piece of wisdom called "The Paradoxical Commandments". They were mistakenly attributed, for a long time, to Mother Teresa. It doesn't matter what the source is; it's the wisdom that counts. They have been helpful to me in showing that good and important things might as well be done whether or not they are to stand the test of time, whether or not they set up some kind of legacy. They also help me to be conscious of not wanting to accumulate good deeds in service of my own legend. Some of the commandments which most connected with me were:
- "What you spend years building, someone may destroy overnight. Build anyway"
- "The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow. Do good anyway."
- "Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough. Give the world the best you've got anyway."
Self-esteem
It's not very altruistic, I suppose, but I just feel better about myself when I am doing things that matter, and aren't focused only on me. That same caveat, of being careful not just to be acting in service of my own legend, is important in this context: pride is very close to self-esteem on the merit continuum.
This all started out with my dad. It looks like an exercise based on what I learnt not to do from him, but I am grateful for the positive lesson drawn from his example. What I do know is that I had two big advantages which my dad didn't – I had him for a father and my mum for a mother. Those are other stories yet to be told.
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