Flunking Retirement

I flunked retirement! This is evidence-based: just look at this column—I’m not sitting by the fireplace doing my knitting in my rocking chair. (Actually, it would be needlepoint in a recliner.)

When you think of retirement, what images come to mind? For me it always was an ocean, a sunset, a palm tree.

Well, I have all three right out of my bedroom window, and it did not do the trick. So, what are the options? In thinking about retirement, I divided people into three levels of work/leisure.

1.    Those that indeed are happy to play golf or bridge, read a book, spend time with grandchildren, garden, cook, attend a class, volunteer a couple of hours a week, go on a cruise once a year. They are definitely retired.

2.   Then there are those that are semi-retired. They do some of the above, but they also have a part-time job such as consultant or their volunteer activities entail some responsibility that they cannot shirk at will. It can be as active board members or wherever others rely on you . You need to show up.

3.   And finally there are those who have an F in retirement. They may have tried the life of leisure for thirty seconds and did not like it and just continue what they have always done, but at a different schedule or different position. Within that group there is a whole new category: the retirees who have re-invented themselves into a new type of full-time worker.

I recently got an e-mail from a doctor who had operated on my husband many years ago and with whom I have remained a long-distance friend. He wrote that his skills as a surgeon will be waning as he is aging and since he has never developed any other skills nor interests, he was wondering what he could do next. So we’re talking about re-inventing yourself. This is the chance to experience a whole new way of being, thinking, learning, living—so the questions to ask oneself are the following:

1.    Think of some of the happiest times in your life—when you felt most fulfilled and productive. What were you doing then? What made you happy? What skills were you using? What interactions with others were you having?

2.   Were there people you admired or envied and wished you were in their shoes? What were these people doing?

3.   Did you have fantasies about yourself in some wondrous adventures like when you were young what did you dream of being?

4.   When you read a newspaper, magazine, journal, what do you read first—what draws your immediate interest besides what you need to read professionally?

5.    Now, when you put all that information together, do you see a pattern? Something maybe even in your unconscious, that road not taken, that dream unfulfilled. We don’t have to become experts at some new ventures, but we can take classes in subjects we were curious about, go to events and meet people whose interests could match yours, volunteer in an organization that has nothing to do with your previous work, in other words—you will be living on a new learning curve. What fun is that!

You will happily flunk retirement when you will do something that gives you that proverbial dopamine kick. This feeling of great pleasure and satisfaction when you do something that gives you a high—your brain expressing that other feel-good hormone—a little adrenaline circulating in your blood making you feel alive.

This is not advice—this is to help you become aware of options—all equally valid.

1.    Move quietly and happily into a comfortable old age,

2.   Do a bit here and there just enough to stay tuned, or

3.   Get out of your comfort zone and re-invent yourself.

We all have default settings for the way he have lived our lives and the choices we have made. Here is a new opportunity to re-examine those default settings and either remain constant or try something new. To paraphrase Socrates: Only a re-examined life is worth living.

Good Luck!

Copyright © 2013. Natasha Josefowitz. All rights reserved.

Who Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?

Whether you’re just out of school, changing jobs, or reentering the job market, the first thing you need to think about is not only what jobs are available, but what kind of person you are. What are the necessary conditions for you to do your best work? What, about you, should be most highly valued?

What are your objectives? Do you want to earn the most money immediately, or do you want a position with the most opportunities for advancement? Is the work climate important to you? Think about it. Write down the minimum acceptable salary in terms of your lifestyle. Be realistic. Ask yourself how far you want to go. In other words, how high up is the top for you? Do you aspire to be a CEO or would you rather supervise only a few people? Would you prefer to be a member of a work group, or do you work best when you are alone?

Where would you like to work? You may like certain parts of the country, either because it is what’s familiar to you and you already have established friendships and family or because you want to go to a new place. Do you prefer mountains or the seacoast, a warm or cold climate, an urban or rural setting?

Give some thought to the kind of organization you’d like to work for. There are a couple of issues to consider: First, would you prefer working for a large company or a small one? Some of the answers may be found within your own experience. Did you enjoy attending a small school or a large one? Are you more comfortable with anonymity or intimacy? Contrary to expectations, you can find friendships while working in a close-knit unit of a large company. At first glance, it might seem that there will be more opportunities for you in a large company, but it is also possible to get stuck, forever, in the lower rungs. In a small company you are more visible, and, if you do well, you’ll have a chance to move up, unless there is simply no room at the top.

Do you want to work for a manufacturing company or for a service organization? Although there is usually more money to be earned in industry than in service or nonprofit, they also tend to have different corporate cultures.

Think of what kind of work atmosphere you would like. Would you prefer a traditional organization, very formal and structured, such as a bank or insurance company? Or would you feel more comfortable in an innovative organization, such as an advertising agency or a firm on the edge of new electronic technology? In these places, creativity is rewarded but the anxiety level is higher. Decide whether you enjoy the challenge of being a pathfinder or whether you would rather leave those hassles to others and follow an already beaten track. What feels too risky for one person is no risk at all for another.

Another major question you should ask yourself is “What can I do that is marketable?” The other side of that coin is: “Who would hire me?” If you don’t think your liberal arts college degree is enough to land you a job, if you have been out of the workforce for so long that you don’t know where to start, or if you’re dissatisfied with your present work and want to try something else, take heart. You have all kinds of skills that will be valuable to an employer. You just need to figure out exactly what they are and how to present them. You need to translate what you know and what you have done into a list of skills that will make an employer want to hire you. Think in terms of where and when you have felt most appreciated, most skilled, most knowledgeable. What was so satisfying about those times? Were there skills involved that you want to be able to use again or perfect? Perhaps you wish to learn something new and wouldn’t mind starting lower down, taking some time to get up to speed. In these hard economic times with a poor job market, knowing yourself, and knowing what your abilities and preferences are, will make you a more convincing candidate when the time comes to be interviewed.

Copyright © 2013. Natasha Josefowitz. All rights reserved.

In the Name of…

We live in a world where nearly everything is programmed to survive by killing one other. Imported plants take over native species, big fish eat little fish, and big animals prey on smaller ones. Ant colonies war with each other; primates do the same. Within our bodies, white blood cells gobble up intruders; in the heavens, black holes gobble up stars.

Eat and be eaten, kill or be killed.

So, we are doing the same. Whether it is dissenting political parties or tribal warfare, conflict is part of human history wherever our species lived and still exists today in remote places in the world. We should be surprised when there is peace and good will for a few years, not when there is war and ill will.

We are territorial animals. We want each other’s land or oil wells or to force others to believe in our God or our political system—how different is it except for scale and technology from wanting each other’s goats or women or totems?

So even when it is not one nation against another, it is one belief system against another. And that, perhaps, is the most destructive of all. When we raid a neighboring village (or nation) to take their resources, we are satisfied with our loot, but often the prize we want is to convert others to our belief system.

We become so entrenched in the fight that we justify the violence as divinely ordained (or moral and necessary to the great cause or the revolution). So, where does that line of reasoning take us?

The suicide bombers of the World Trade Center are sitting at the right hand of God (for they did this in the name of Allah, killing infidels), or so they were promised and believed. Who else is sitting there?

The Christians who led the Crusades (also to kill infidels), or the ones who instigated the Inquisition to kill Jews, or the ones who killed Native Americans in the New World in the name of Christ, are they all sitting with God? What God would be pleased that people kill in his name—Allah or Jesus?

Will the Catholics go to heaven, but not the Baptists? Or, will the Baptists, but not the Mormons? Does a Muslim have the answer or a Jehovah’s Witness or an Inuit? Did God speak to Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, and Joseph Smith?

Even within the same religion there is dissent: Orthodox versus Reform Jews and Christians fighting with each other. So, what is it? Will half of Ireland go to heaven and the other half be denied access? Do we know which: the Catholics or the Protestants? Will the Sunnis  or the Shiites?

Is it a clash of religion or a clash of culture? Is it the “have nots” against the “haves,” the bearded ones against the shaven, or the covered heads against the bare ones? Is it dark skin against light?

The survival of our species in the New Millennium will depend, not on ancient conflicts, but on new ways of dealing with one other in spite of different gods and different mores. We must invent ways to assuage the immense anger ravaging the earth today in order to keep our species living on this small planet just a bit longer.

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

—Dwight D. Eisenhower, US general and 34^th President (1890–1969)

Perhaps the only way we can counteract our evolutionary propensity is by education. Starting in kindergarten, through high school and college, offer classes not only about understanding diversity but also embracing the ones different from us. We tend to be more comfortable with people similar to ourselves, but our job as teachers, parents, mentors, and leaders is to help people get out of their comfort zones, explore and hold out a hand to those so different from us.

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.

—Friedrich Nietzsche, philosopher (1844–1900)

Yet tolerance is not valued by everyone, some see it as a vice, a lack of moral integrity. Maybe the real conflict isn’t between extremists groups, but between the philosophies of absolutism and relativism.

If we are programmed to fight, is there a way to deprogram ourselves, to accept each other as different but still part of the same human family? Is there a way for us to just love one another, not only in spite of, but because of…?

Copyright © 2013. Natasha Josefowitz. All rights reserved.