When it’s cold, it’s cold. It has been so cold lately that I am thinking of retiring and moving south. After many years in New York, my parents moved to Florida, where they eventually died. Message: don’t move south unless you want to die. Get it? So in that first sentence lies the secret to a long life. Don’t retire and don’t move south.
Over the years, I have heard a lot of people say they couldn’t wait to retire. They approach the magic age of 65 (or is it 66 these days?) and tell you incessantly how much they are looking forward to retiring. That, my friends, is a serious mistake. I know that many people out there might resent these words. Maybe I’m wrong. I should never ascribe my philosophy to those folks who take a different road. Maybe people should retire from jobs with which they are unhappy.
The problem is what sociologists have always called “other-directiveness.” Do we follow our own path or do we do what conventional wisdom (the others) tells us to do? Too many people are of the second type. Take being retired. What exactly do people mean when they talk of retirement? I am convinced that such an attitude will kill some people. I am married to a woman who retired from teaching, and then wrote a number of great books including her latest, “The Jewish World of Elvis Presley.” On the other hand, there are some of us who could never retire unless we run out of old “Gunsmoke” episodes to watch.
A lot has to do with the way we were raised. My mother was quite a worker, sometimes doing three paid jobs at a time. When she came home for even a short amount of time, she would collapse on her bed and tell me that if her boss, Morris “Stinky Finky” Finkle called, I was to tell him she wasn’t there. I don’t remember him ever calling. She set up so many nonprofits, such as The Riverside Neighborhood Assembly and College and Career Consultants. I suspect she finally decided to move to Florida because things got sort of wicked with some non-profit competitors attacking her success.
No one ever said one’s work was always rewarding. If you read my mail, you would quickly come to understand there is a strain of competitive ugliness that successful people have to face from people who are usually unfulfilled themselves.
So, as we go through these cold days where we stay home, we face a different set of choices. When it’s too cold to go out, I can occupy myself with work such as writing this column. We can let others define us, either with their kindness or their own self-hatred, or we can know — I mean really know — what our contribution has been and continues to be.
