Retired or In Transition?
I was talking to a good friend I had gone to school with named Sherry. She had finished her 35th year in teaching and was all set to retire. I told her how excited I was for her and her husband Mike. We talked for about fifteen minutes; she was quick with all of the answers to my questions. And then I asked the hard question. “What’s next?” She hemmed and hawed for a while about just decompressing and getting things done around the house, maybe travel.
I wouldn’t let it go, I said, “No, really, you’re too dynamic to just sit down. You led your teacher’s union. You were the teacher of the year several times. You won awards for your teaching. You are educated and you and Mike are in great health. What’s next?” She didn’t have an answer for that. She was just going to stop teaching. Step away. Take care of things in the house. Visit her kids. Travel.
She’s like so many. She has been conditioned to think that after so many years in a profession you need to retire and to relax and just coast out those last 25 – 30 years. This is so hard for me to understand. It took the first quarter of our lives to get out of the blocks (Age: 0 – 20). The next 20 years (Age: 21 – 40) we are in our element; we are chasing whatever there is to chase in our careers. Whether it be to make the world better or as simple as chasing the next check. The third 20 years (Age: 41 – 60) we spend trying to make our lives as comfortable as possible until we retire. And then we wait for the “long good night”. It’s like a sporting event and you struggle for three quarters to put yourself in the position to “win” in the fourth quarter. The fourth quarter (Age: 61 – 80+) we are still viable human beings. Especially if you took care of yourself at all during the first three quarters.
You have gained perspective and experiences that go well beyond any classroom. But most are happy just to sit back and do nothing. What a huge loss for society. After 35 – 40 years of work, you now have a financial base to move into an area that you have always wanted to go. Because you earned the flexibility you can decide how many hours a day you want to devote to this venture. Remember when you are gone, so is all of that knowledge and experience that you have stored up. No longer do you need to talk the corporate talking points. If you believe in another way of making it to the top, tell the people. Especially with so many ways to get your word out.
