Retirement--a POWERful Experience in Rewiring

In a recent AARP Magazine article, Yakov Smirnof, comedian and writer, points out that in retirement “you are approaching a time in life when you can not only choose the games you wish to play but also write your own rules and be a winner every time.” (May-June, 2009, p. 18)

Wow, that’s a liberating thought, isn’t it? Life without rules. Do what you want. No more following directions and fulfilling everyone else’s expectations. For the majority of our lives, we have been following rules and fulfilling expectations that were set for us, first by our parents, then by our families, and then by our jobs. There didn’t seem to be much time for anything else. In fact, time was a most precious commodity and there was never enough to go around.

Do you know what a fuse box and retirement have in common? Let’s examine for a minute these two very different concepts. What is the purpose of a fuse box? With apologies to my electrician friends, in novice terms, let me just say that the fuse box brings power into your home and then distributes it to the various sites where it is needed. Wires connecting the fuse box lead directly to kitchen appliances, electronic equipment, lights, cooling and heating systems, among other things. Some appliances need more powerful fuses than others, and the electrician is the expert who selects the appropriate fuses and hooks up the wires as needed.

Think of yourself as a source of energy, similar to the panel of fuses in your house. For the past thirty (plus or minus) years that you have been working, you divided up your energy among the various demands of your life. If, like me, your priorities centered around family and work, the majority of your energy went toward satisfying the needs and demands of those two areas of your life. You as an individual were wired for certain behaviors and recurring tasks. Now, take away that job, take away those children who have probably moved out, and you are left with a very large source of energy that has nowhere to go. It’s just sitting there unused.

If this is the case, it would appear that a new retiree might need a little rewiring. Just as a brick and mortar building needs to be rewired periodically to update all of the electrical connections as a house is modernized, we often hear this word “rewiring” used to describe a person who is going through a major life change and who will need a whole new set of skills and renewed perspectives to cope with the future that he / she is facing.I like this metaphor to describe the changes that I have been experiencing during the past year. For the majority of my life, my priorities were family and work. The majority of my electrical circuits had their origins in the fuses governing these two areas of my life and provided the power for me to perform the functions needed to successfully cover those areas of my life. However, the hard-learned skill-sets, talents or modes of thinking that I have cultivated for 34 years and that earned me a certain degree of success and a reputation for reliability in my work may no longer be needed or even applicable for the decisions that I will be making today.

As a parent and an educator, there were many rules I had to live by. These rules determined to a large extent the way I was wired. They guided my choices and the way I carried out my responsibilities. Be strong. Be a good role model. Be fair. Be consistent. Be organized. Be patient. Be generous. Be knowledgeable. Use your time wisely. Be enthusiastic. Be creative. Be a good listener. Be a team player. Do your best.

At first, the thought of entering a realm of “no rules,” creates a sense of excitement and we think this thing called retirement should be a cake walk! If there are no rules, I can’t make any mistakes, right? Well, imagine a classroom teacher coming in on day one of school and announcing to her students that there will be no rules in this class this year. Can you imagine the chaos and the uncertainty?

In fact, being rewired for a system where there are no rules puts a greater responsibility on ourselves and makes us face our own set of values. All of a sudden, instead of living up to everyone else’s expectations for ourselves, we have only to live up to our own. But do we even know what they are?If never before, retirement is a time for a thorough re-examination of our own priorities. Retirement is a gift that we have earned. It is the gift of rest, recuperation, reflection and recreation. It is a time to explore, discover, listen, watch, and experiment. For me personally, I have asked myself things like--What makes me tick? Am I someone who needs constant interaction with other people? Or do I thrive on the quiet times sitting cozily on my sofa with my cat and dog nearby reading the latest selection for my book club or watching a classic movie on TCM? What will it take for me to feel good about myself today? What does it take for me to feel good about myself on any day? What are my own standards for happiness? For success? For fulfillment? Are there some areas of my life that have been left “in the dark” because of the responsibilities I had but that could still be there waiting to be brought into the light?

What about taking care of myself physically? Don’t I owe it to myself to stay healthy so that I won’t be a burden to my children or my siblings in later years? What about the greater role that I could be playing in my community? What skills do I have that might be helpful to someone else? What are my dreams? Do I have the drive and commitment I’ll need to attain those dreams?

What about you? Have you thought about rewiring for retirement? What will guide your thinking and your actions as you move forward into your sixties, seventies, eighties and beyond?

Yakov Says . . . Make Your Own Rules

In response to a question from a reader who expressed terror at the prospect of a future after retirement and the lack of structure provided to her life by work and raising a family, Yakov Smirnoff, comedian and writer, wrote the following in the AARP Magazine (May/June 2009, p. 18):

Here is the short version of the question:

“I keep obsessing about the inevitable day when I’ll have no job responsibilities. I feel as if my life is shrinking. How do I find my passion again?”

“You are approaching a time in life when you can not only choose the games you wish to play but also write your own rules and be a winner every time. You’ll finally have the time and the freedom to experiment and play, with hobbies and new occupations that interest you. What do you really love to do—I mean, besides your job? What energizes and excites you? Even though you may still have quite a few working years left, it’s not too early to get a jump-start on working toward making yourself a winner.”

Yakov Smirnoff has captured so well in this short answer a healthy and hope-filled perspective toward retirement that I happen to share with him. This is just one sample of the type of article available to you as a member of AARP. If you haven’t already discovered the wealth of information made available by AARP (American Association of Retired Persons), I suggest that you go to your computer right now and look it up on the internet to find out how to join. Like me, you might be thinking—I’m not that old! How can I be ready to subscribe to AARP? Isn’t that something for my parents or my grandparents? Well, guess what friends. You are your parents! If you are following this blog, chances are you are old enough to qualify for membership in AARP. Check it out. http://www.aarp.org

Family Legacies

In my last posting, I wrote about my father and our collaborative exercise of looking back over his life to identify the significant episodes in each decade of his 95 years. Just seven days ago marked the fifth anniversary of my mother’s death, which provoked more reminiscences on my part. Coincidentally, last week also marked the death of Senator Ted Kennedy. The news media is full of articles and editorials about the Kennedy Legacy—in particular, the legacy of public service. Then there are the poignant stories about Ted the dad encouraging his son after his leg amputation and Uncle Teddy, the father-figure for the whole Kennedy clan after so many of the fathers of the family had met with violent deaths. The responsibilities on this man’s shoulders were enormous.

As a follow-up to the exercise I did with my Dad, in today’s posting I’d like to write about some of the legacies left to me by my parents (pictured above soon after their marriage in 1936) and about how they impacted my life. I don’t have to look very far to identify the foremost legacies left by my mother and father. For my parents, it was clear that family was the number one priority. How do I know this? Did they tell me? I don’t remember that either parent ever actually verbalized to me what they valued and why they lived their life the way they did. Even if they didn’t spell it out for me, I’d know because they lived it. I can tell you about the car trips to holiday celebrations when we gathered at either my mom’s or my dad’s family homes in West Virginia. This is where we got to know our grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins and also where we got to observe what our family represented. During these family events, we children learned how to sit quietly and listen to our elders talk, contributing to the conversation and sharing our latest adventures when we were asked questions. We knew that we were expected to be there and that we were expected to display proper manners and behavior. This was part of the privilege and the responsibility of being a member of the Saville family.

In addition to these holiday times, there were the weekly Sunday rituals when we attended church as a family and then returned home to gather around the dining room table and share our traditional Sunday dinner, usually pot roast with potatoes, carrots and onions—always preceded by saying the blessing and followed by the clean-up. On Sundays as on every evening of the week, we were all expected to be there for dinner, and to help out by setting the table and clearing up after the meal. One of our favorite family memories and shared images is of the four children, lined up in front of the kitchen counter, the youngest standing on a step stool, each with an assigned task for the week—washing, rinsing, drying or putting away the dishes. This image speaks volumes about what it meant to be a member of the family.

And then there were the very clear expectations that we would all work hard in school; that we would go to college; and that we would prepare for a profession so that we would be able to support ourselves, boys and girls alike, and so that we would be able to make positive contributions to our communities. From my mom, we got the high expectations for performance. From my dad, we got the work ethic that meant you stuck with a job until it was done and done well.

All of this, we got within the first two decades of our lives—mainly through the power of observation and assimilation as we watched our parents move through their lives. These formative years of my life were spent in the safety and protection of a loving family. There was church, Girl Scouts, 4-H, piano lessons and a whole score of other healthy, wholesome activities. The most incredible aspect of all this is that in addition to teaching their 4 children these life-long lessons, my parents were both pursuing careers which made them valued and respected members of the larger community. We learned that it is possible to raise a family and at the same time to do your professional job and to do it well. We did not see an attitude of “I work from 9-5 and don’t ask me to do anymore.” Rather, we saw “You do what it takes to excel and to be the best teacher / public servant that you can be. Mediocrity is not an option.”

I look at my own life as a working parent, and I see the same patterns of parenting combined with pursuit of a career. I tried to teach my children to be engaged in life from an early age; to participate in worthwhile activities; to respect and to be helpful to others; and to value learning. I’m not sure how well I carried out the high expectations part. I know that at some level I was always afraid of putting excessive pressure on my own children to live up to MY expectations, something which I saw too often among the students and families where I taught. As for myself, let’s just say that “achievement-oriented” is my middle name. Remember, I said I am a type-A personality. Need I say more?

There were certainly many challenges along the way for me, both in parenting and in marriage. Some of these challenges would have made my parents cringe if they had known about them. My children knew how to push buttons that my parents didn’t even know existed. Somewhere along the way I learned the lesson of persistence—maybe to a fault. I never gave up—on my children, on my marriage or on my career—even when the road was so rocky that, if I had been in a horse and buggy, I would certainly have been thrown out of the cart. On those occasions, to continue the metaphor, I guess you could say that I stepped out of the cart to lighten the load, or to help lift the cart over the rocks, and then kept on walking or riding until I reached the desired destination. Like Paul Harvey, to tell the rest of the story, I must add that ultimately, my marriage ended in divorce. After 27 years, my husband decided to pursue a lifestyle that did not include me. Because of the high expectations I had always had for myself, this divorce was one of the greatest disappointments in my life. But, I have adjusted and moved on. (More on this topic at a later time.)

So, here I am, age 63, and basically I am still living my life in accordance with that legacy left to me by my parents, in addition to a few on-the-job lessons I learned the hard way. Parents have the potential for so much influence on their children. I wonder if my parents knew to what degree each of those daily acts and decisions would eventually influence the direction in my life. At any age, it’s a good question to ask —what legacy am I leaving to those that follow me? How will I be remembered?