Building a framework for living #12: Other consequences of portfolio of engagements
When I walk in the woods it engages different senses and stirs different perspectives — seeing the magic of sunlight filtering down through the leaves; hearing the sound of wind rustling in between the trees; a sense of wonder at the resilience of living beings as branches bend every other way to reach for the sunlight; or like it happened recently, coming across the skin of a snake left behind next to the trail.
We have often come across the shed skin of the snake (also known as ecdysis; ek-de-ses), but this time seeing the skin made me wonder when was the snake here and how long it took for it to go through this transition, and in the end, did it take on a new identity?
In our own life, we go through several changes of skin over time. For us, leaving the old skin behind and getting into a new one could be a long or a short process. It could be easy or exhausting. The result at the end is a change in our identity, an improved v2.0 us, we hope.
If we look back at our lives, some of these transitions happen as part of the normal process of growing up, others may be self-initiated, still others may be forced on us.
A big transition in the generation I live in is retirement, at least, for some of us. One day after working for 30–40 years, we leave a curated identity behind, and walk out of door naked.
The skin we leave behind is not only our identity, but is also our social connection, hooks to anchor the passage of time, a purpose in our life. Suddenly on the day of retirement, all is shed in one swoop.
If you are lucky to have a retirement party, and as one by one colleagues leave and the hall starts to empty, the finality of the change, and its consequences, starts to hit consciousness.
At the end of the evening, after making several trips to the car with an odd assortment of gifts given to us, we walk out, look back one more time, and feeling naked start driving home.
If we did not prepare over time and left a new skin at home to slide into, the process of finding another skin begins. Whether we succeed or not depends on our internal resources, and unfortunately, not all of us may be up to the task.
But a little guide on how to go about finding a new skin, a new identity, may help.
First, start with considering what would I like the new skin to have?
At the minimum, in the new skin I am looking for, I would like to have some of the same spots as the one I left behind.
To get one, I can go the local mall and hope that one of the stores sells one (wishful thinking), and failing that, I need to stitch one together. Do I even know how to make one? I don’t think so.
It is something I have not been coached upon. In some of the major transitions I have gone through earlier, as I shed one skin and stepped through the door, all I had to do was to put on the new one that was left there for me.
When I finished high school, I knew I was headed for college. When I finished college and my student days were over, I knew that it was time to find a job and transition into that. That was followed by efforts to continue to have a stable job and advancing the career.
In each of these transitions, I knew what the new identity was going to be.
And now that it’s time to retire, I do not have the luxury to step out of my present skin and step out of the door to find a new one to slip into. I am sure that none of the farewell presents I will receive will have new skin for a gift.
This time I am on my own and must learn ways to stitch together new skin that fits over the old bones. After much deliberation, and in the process often feeling lost, not knowing where to even start, the idea I have settled on is that the starting step in the process is to develop an appropriate portfolio of engagements.
The items inside my portfolio of engagements (PoE), aka, bag of holdings, are some curated items that will have the intentionality to align with what I value.
These items, once part of my routine after retirement, are going to take me through the process of developing a new identity.
The advantages and consequences of having the right PoE, besides making my time on the Earth well lived, are sundry and include the following.
- The engagements will give me an identity. One day if I were to come across some old colleague in the local supermarket and get asked, “What you are doing after retirement”, I would have a ready answer.
- The engagements, by aligning with my values, will be self-motivating.
- By the same virtue, the engagements also will give me a purpose. The purpose being the realization of my values.
- The engagements will give my day a sense of structure.
- The engagements will urge me to get out of bed and look forward to the day.
- At the end of the day, when I look back, the engagements will make me say that it was a day well spent and I will not mind repeating it tomorrow. After saying that, I can drift into a restful sleep. Further, if days feel well spent then by extension, the engagements will also make me feel that life was well lived.
- All of the above put together will bring a sense of equanimity and a fulfilling life, which in turn, will ease the angst of mortality (a note — a curious side note about retirement is that with it comes the bonus realization that it is the last act. Needing to look at the life expectancy table to figure out what the required minimum distribution from the retirement plan is going to be, does not help.)
That is a long list of positive side effects. What more you can ask from the bag of holdings
And so, these are the consequences of curating the right portfolio of engagements.
It was a gorgeous spring day and it felt beautiful to be outdoors on the trail. Following the analogy of the snake, I am slowly developing the PoE and getting into a new skin of my own. The difference is that snake changes its entire skin at one go, it is happening in bits and pieces for me, and also, is taking far longer. But for now, I am in no hurry.
Ciao.
Summary
- It is important to realize that to have a fulfilling life, the activities in our portfolio of engagements should align with our values.
- The advantages and consequences of having the right portfolio of engagements, besides making my time on the Earth well lived, are sundry.
- The engagements will give me an identity; they are self-motivating; they give a sense of structure and purpose.
- All consequences put together bring a sense of equanimity and a fulfilling life, which in turn, eases the angst of mortality.
Related
Building a framework for living #1: Becoming aware of mortality
Building a framework for living #2: The basic premise for its need
Building a framework for living #3: Follow the advice from stoics
Building a framework for living #4: The basic principles
Building a framework for living #5: Working with the fundamental unit that makes a life
Building a framework for living #6: The alchemy of fulfilling days
Building a framework for living #7: The yardstick for fulfilling days
Building a framework for living #8: What makes a day anyway?
Building a framework for living #9: A strategy to make a day well lived
Building a framework for living #10: Choosing right engagements to make a day well lived.
Building a framework for living #11: Need for aligning engagements with our values
