Friday, March 14, 2008
When To Retire
As in your personal life, in your professional life it is always a good thing to know when to go. For some reason our private lives no matter how murky they may appear, turn out to be the easiest to extricate ourselves from. In fact we are sometimes over achievers when it comes to the "Big Leave" we do it seemingly without much provocation or care for the inevitable fallout that always ensues yet when it comes to leaving a job or retiring, we lose all sense of perspective and enter into a collossal morass of denial. Somehow the fact that we've been at the same work place for eons and/or are at a retireable age, results in us becoming tenacious clinging vines apparently unable to sever ourselves from the tree even as we know the tree will continue to thrive once the excess weeds and nearly dead branches have been trimmed away, in a nutshell no one is irreplaceable yet there are legions of men and women out there in the work force who are clearly past their prime. They have in fact turned into those nearly dead branches, but they can't see the forest for the trees! Who then has to step up to the plate..chainsaw and make the tree viable once again? We cannot blame retirement packages that are less than stellar anymore than we can hold the no mandatory retirement age law accountable. We must place blame squarely on the shoulders of those who refuse to see their own particular degrees of incompetence along with the fact that they have definitely reached their personal crossroads and it is NOW their time to go. Extolling the virtues of retirement or a change of work place. might help but only slightly and will not guarantee optimum results. What is needed most besides the promise of an awesome goodbye party would probably be an instructural course of substance to act as a buttress and counselling which would educate as well as serve -in an outreach manner-the increasingly growing number of people who with the correct tools as well as the necessary support in place might be inspired through being better informed that the "right" time to decamp is today!
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3 comments:
Do you habe anyone in particular in mind? Or, is this just a gentle reminder to those frenetic members of the workforce who have made no plans and do not know how to be alone with themselves, or who are so programmed that they cannot learn that we are not our work but ourselves?
Johnboy must be able to see that there is a deep-seated, sub-marine referance being made here. The author clearly refers to her first born son, who although has spent most of his adult life working hard at odd, menial, interesting, far-off and challenging jobs, has (as chance and 'creative wriggling' would have it) spent a great deal of time (including the noteable present) not working at such odd, menial interesting, far-off and/or challenging jobs... and as such has a keen edge on the retirement carrot (that seems to swing just out of reach for most - lonesome in the wind). And so, as I have become well-acquainted with the days of rising without alarm-clock-obstruction, of having to myself and not leant to another my time and thoughts - as I have become familiar with afternoon creativity and late-night traffic-watching and mid-day nothing just to accent my lack of serfdom, I will take the good advice of the author and 'prune' myself from this great tree. Although it is filled with my dutiful, busily working bretheren I prefer to be without feelings of cog-ery in my daily 'bustle'. So...I, it seems, am retiring. I announce it officially here... on this blog. I have had enough of doing what I must. I no longer wish to punch-in. I will spare the happy foliage my smart-ass remarks. I am not too near-sighted to see my place and that now is my time. I will not stick around for ego. I am not afraid you see...for I may one day return from retirement as many greats have done but until that day, I tip my golfer's cap to you all and raise a reclined sock-free foot in salute.
That's of course...'deep seeded'.
:)
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