A fulfilling life and finding another god in retirement
A long time ago, we used to roam the African savannas, and life probably was not all a bed of roses.
If I were to imagine, the daily routine of our ancestors was tied up with rising and setting of the sun. The day was spent hunting and gathering for food, keeping themselves safe from predators, taking care of their offspring to propagate their precious genes. In all likelihood, there was no luxury of discretionary time to sit under a tree, chill, and enjoy the green vistas stretching out in front of us or gaze at the sky and see the march of thousand brilliant stars every night.
Having discretionary time at our disposal is a trait that emerged only recently. One of the paradigm shifts in the trajectory of human evolution may have been gaining the luxury of discretionary time.
But there is no free lunch. Every good thing (assuming discretionary time is one) could hide a darker side. There is always a yin for the yang. The luxury of having discretionary time could easily come with the dilemma: what to do with it? Not just do something, but have an engagement that feels fulfilling and meaningful.
Getting older magnifies the conundrum of discretionary time at hand and could easily become a debilitating condition.
The amount of discretionary time at our disposal increases by an order of magnitude in the years subsequent to our retirement. And so does the urgency of trying to figure out ways to engage that time. Unfortunately, not all of us may be well skilled for this task.
By the time we reach retirement, or start to think about retirement, we have been working for 30+ years. Over that time, work slowly becomes our life. It becomes our identity; it gives our life a purpose; it is an anchor that does not let us feel adrift; it becomes our social connection, sometimes the only one.
Slowly, and in imperceptible ways, work becomes our personal god and religion. When the time comes, it is wrenching to leave the god behind and to disown the religion we converted to.
One day, however, whether we like it or not, the god of work has to be let go. For some, rules of retirement make it necessary, for others, the body may start to complain, or it could just be the general weariness of dealing with the same old same old. Whatever the reason, one evening we find ourselves standing outside the building we thought was our temple, look at it in a forlorn way, and slowly walk away knowing that we would not be back tomorrow.
A new life of post retirement begins. After a few months into it, as our honeymoon period with retirement passes and the passions start to cool down, we are confronted with the need to find another temple, and another god within. It also dawns that it is less of finding a temple than it is the process of building one with our own hands. However, either we never had the right carpentry skills to handle the task, or if we had, our hands are now too rusty.
Having the right skills or not, we have to find another temple, another god, another religion to become our anchor.
Retirement, and the prospects of a handful of discretionary time in our hands, could be an unnerving experience. At least, it was for me. And if the newly minted profession of retirement coaches is any indication, it is a prevalent problem.
Getting closer to retirement, and thinking about the seemingly endless march of days ahead without quite knowing what to do with the abundance of time at hand, threw me completely off balance. What would I do — travel more, become a Zen gardener or a gourmet cook, read and read and read, watch movies, spend more time keeping up with my health, spend more time with nature — all kinds of options were there, but something did not seem to jive. None of them seemed to provide an anchor to life, give a sense of meaning and purpose. It just seemed like that inside of me lacks the right receptors to feel engaged with different available options.
Take reading and learning about new things. A question would come up: what for? When young, reading and learning have an innate purpose. It gives us the skill to eventually earn a living. But now, doing the same for its own sake, did not seem motivating.
Perhaps, staring starkly in the face of our mortality deprives things of the flavors they previously carried.
After a period of inner struggle, going down the dead end trails, it is only now that I have begun to dig myself out. One specific approach that helped was the slow recognition of portfolio engagements that made me feel that going through the day brought a sense of fulfillment.
One class of such engagements was doing something that brought back the feeling of being creative, e.g., writing — be it journaling, slowly working through a potential blog post, snippets of thoughts written as poems. Days when I can sit quietly for a while with my fingers at the keyboard for a few hours calmed the fluttery soul, and brought a sense of peace.
On the weekends when I am able to spend a few hours in the morning writing, it brings the feeling that the day is now anchored, and with that, I can wander the rest of the day.
Slowly, it also dawned that writing created a healthy ecosystem of engagements around itself that support each other. Writing gives a purpose to reading and learning, Writing also prompts to dig deeper into specific subjects. The most frequented website lately might be Wikipedia.
And most importantly, writing also keeps my gray matter, oh well, gray.
It is a beautiful feeling to have an ecosystem of engagements where different components support one another and like etchings of E. M. Escher, blend into each other.
The important notion for finding the recipe to walk away from the temple of our work life, to leave a god we have known for a long time behind, and to once again to have a peaceful heart, is to find the right combination of engagements to spend the day. A combination that makes us want to get out of the bed in winter mornings and have something to look forward to.
The hard part is that in retirement we have to build our own temple, create our own identity, and have an answer to the question — So Arun, what are you doing these days?
Ciao.
Summary:
1. Having discretionary time at our disposal is a trait that emerged only recently in history.
2. The luxury of having discretionary time could come with the dilemma: what to do with it?
3. Getting older, particularly retiring, magnifies the conundrum of more discretionary time at hand and could easily become a debilitating condition.
4. Retiring could also be a tsunami event in our life. It is like leaving a god we worshiped for 30+ years behind leaving us to find another god to anchor our life.
5. The new god could be developing a portfolio of engagements that rekindles the sense of purpose.
Related:
A fulfilling life and building a framework for living
Building a framework for Living #1: Becoming aware of mortality
