1º 02.308n 125º 07.357w
Mon Apr 29 2019
Today
is my brother Kirk’s last day at work. After a bunch of years with the City of
Chesapeake Public Works Department, he’s hit his magic number for pension
benefit. He’s pulling the handles on the ejection seat and taking the leap to
what’s next. I want to congratulate him for having the cojones to leave the
familiar and move on. My condolences to city management who are likely
scrambling to fill the void in knowledge, determination and grit that he’ll
leave behind. There’s something terribly satisfying about getting to the point
in a career that you no longer care about supporting stupid office politics,
and instead do what you know is right for the customer.
Kirk
is a history buff, and there’s no shortage of civil war battlefields and
museums looking for highly knowledgeable individuals to train as docents. He’ll
have a lot more fun and won’t have to worry about being paid for his services.
That’s
what successful retirement is. Not bailing out of the job market so you can
vegetate on the couch binge watching Netflix; rather reaching the point in your
life where you’re no longer forced to sell your time. You gotta have a dream, a
plan for what is next, and if you’re a social animal, a partner who shares all
of that with you.
I
hit the jackpot in 1996 when I met Isabel on a live-aboard SCUBA boat in
Australia. I keep threatening to self-publish a trashy romance novel based on
the experience, one nobody will read. Won’t matter - it’ll be fun to write.
When
Isabel and I were living aboard at Cruiseport Marina in Ensenada, Mexico there
were crusty old single hander live-aboard sailors all over the place. Two on
our pontoon, Johnny and Bob both referred to me as “Lucky Bastard”. I had
married a woman who was passionate about sailing, and who wanted to bail out of
professional life as early as possible so we could share that common dream.
Never
forget you can’t buy time or health, and the older you get, the more your body
finds ways to malfunction, regardless of your efforts to eat well and exercise.
All that does help, but in the end random luck and family genetics get a big
say in your personal outcome.
I
puzzle over corporate worker bee folks who choose employment over retirement
long after they’ve made their pile. Perhaps their partners like having them out
of the house eight hours a day. Perhaps they’ve never taken the time or
expended the energy to develop outside interests. Perhaps they simply don’t
have any ambition to fulfill a lifetime dream.
Bummer
dude.
Then
there’s the business CEO types like our close friend Brad Pedersen or Jim van
Horn or Thad’s brother Josh. They get so much satisfaction out of building
companies, developing products and creating jobs for folks that they simply
don’t want to give that up, and instead negotiate suitable arrangements with
their familes to keep everyone satisfied with their lives. I really respect
those folks.
Like
Kirk, I got pretty darn good at what I did at work, and I avoided that Peter
Principle thing of rising to a level in the company, in my case a transition to
management, where I might get a chance to demonstrate total incompetence. It
just didn’t sound fun, and it didn’t pay any better anyway.
As
our test pilot pal Greg Ashe once noted to me, “they’re buying your life one
hour at a time, and they’re not paying enough. On top of that, they keep you
too busy to think about what you’d rather be doing.”
Dad
worked until he was 68, in part I think because he was a depression era kid and
was always afraid of running out of money. He didn’t run the numbers until it
was too late, and ultimately lamented not retiring sooner.
I
recall reading about an interview with the founder of The Boeing Company, Bill
Boeing. He was asked about his biggest regret in life. His comment? He wished
he had left sooner to spend more time with his family.
Isabel
and I got out while the getting was good. Got rid of everything. There’s no
house that we’re renting, there’s no storage unit full of belongings, there’s
just a few small boxes of mostly precious items in our pal Jack Gray’s attic.
If it were to burn down tomorrow it wouldn’t change our lives.
We’re
looking forward. THIS is what we’d rather be doing.
No comments:
Post a Comment