January29
Many people spend their lives in back-breaking work and it is not puzzling that they look forward to retirement. The work most of them do was not a chldhood dream and even as they entered adulthood, they were not imagining 40 years of ditch digging or burning out their lungs in a mineshaft. Even pumping gas or being a waitress seem unlikely candidates for fulfilling a life’s ambition. Of all these people, we can only say, “Good luck; may your retirement be all you hope it will be.”
But what is it they hope it will be? The essence of their lives has been exhaustion, so I suppose rest, long hours of sleep, nobody bossing them around and watching television endlessly are what they want. These are not bad things and I join in the army of well-wishers.
However, I am interested in a different class of persons: the college professors, the physicians, the successful entrepreneurs and others who “made it.” Why are they so often consumed by thoughts of retirement?
The puzzle arises because, for the most part, they got what they wanted - their ideal job. Yet many persons look forward to “early retirement.” It seems that many of these folks entered into their world for the sake of an early exit. For those of them who, in time, fell out of love with their work, nothing is strange about wanting to quit once one has the financial resources. Does this account for the majority who yearn for early retirement? If so, it is baffling. Do people become doctors,lawyers, college professors because they don’t want to be in these fields? Is all that attracted them to the work in the first place were high incomes, the prestige, the pleasant working conditions and all the other external trappings of the “professional man or woman?” Shouldn’t the work have been entered into for intrinsic rewards? Shouldn’t one leave it only with great reluctance?
Some people discover, perhaps after a decade or more, that they have made a mistake, that the work they imagined would be fulfilling is drab and dreary but, if they are young enough - say under 50 years old - should they simply “stick it out”? Don’t they have time to pursue new careers?
Perhaps I just don’t understand the difficulties of starting all over. Yet many persons I know don’t want to start over because they have begun to idealize retirement. Unlike the people who burned their lungs in a mineshaft or wearily pumped gas all days, six days per week, they are not looking forward to nothing else but watching TV without bosses hovering over them. They have turned their recreational fantasies into ambitions. Whereas once upon a time they looked forward to seeing the Great Wall of China or the paintings in the Louvre as vacation experiences, now they have performed the seeming miracle of transforming such experiences into the meaning of the rest of their lives. In any event, it seems a miracle to me.
For me, retirement came when I thought it was right for me to stop. I didn’t replace my old work with an imaginary new world. I felt I was no longer very good at what I had been doing for 35 years. I did not pack my bags and take off for exotic places but continued doing most of the things I had been doing - writing and reading. I had never regarded these as leisure time activities but thought of them as that which defined me. I did not go at them with any greater intensity because I always knew how much of my day I wanted to devote to them. The additional time that now came my way was pleasant and I spent these hours doing what the gas pump jockey does. It doesn’t seem to me to be shameful to stare mindlessly at a TV set in the evenings even though it does drive my wife crazy. Of course, I never had her mental energy. She began her career as a college teacher when she was 22 years old. This is embarrassingly young, and she does not talk about it. She has now been at it - I hope she doesn’t mind that I give her age away - 48 years. For all I know, this is a world record or, if not, in time, it may be such.
She has now tacked on a new ambition, one so time and energy consuming, that her passion for being a college professor has begun to fade. We have a granddaughter - among 4 others that we have - whom she and I dote on, as we do the others, but only this one, among the five, positively needs her. The other four are blessed with magnificent parents, and that allows JoEllen merely to be your standard Sears Roebuck catalogue-like gram-ma with them. This one, soon to be six years old, has what we may call a “disadvantaged” life for 4 days out of the week. Whether she is willing to admit it or not, JoEllen is the second coming of the Savior. She is determined that this child will grow up to be normal - nothing more than that. It is not easy work. In fact, it is more back-breaking than being down in the mineshafts. For this reason, and only for this reason, JoEllen has been considering “early retirement” after a mere 48 years. Her little Anika needs her, and the good professor is finding it hard to juggle two full-time jobs.
For what it is worth, I approve of her decision to take that “early retirement” and focus on her granddaughter. If anybody has earned early retirement, it is she. I’ll make her coffee in the mornings. Everyone must have some responsibility.