But What Now?

Someone who worked in my office a couple of years ago retired at the end of 2006. First of all, it’s amazing to me that that much time has passed, but that is not why I bring him up. I remember when he had a year to go and we would talk about it regularly. He told me about his plans to go back to school with his son to get an engineering degree. On other days, he talked about riding his (very cool) bicycle across the country. At that time I still had nearly 3 years to go and couldn’t imagine ever making it to the finish line.

As it happened, though, his retirement date came and he left. A couple of months later, after I had moved to a new location, I was talking to another co-worker on the phone in the same office and he told me that David had returned to work as a contractor. I blurted out, “He has no imagination!” Allen proceeded to tell me that David was standing in the office and I was on speakerphone. I felt a little embarrassed for saying that at the time, and apologized to David.

Fast forward a couple of more months and I hear that David has left the contracting position. They told him that he had to get a major programming project out the door in a very short amount of time, and, oh by the way, you have to learn a new programming language, too. He said, forget it, I don’t have to comply with these kinds of unreasonable demands anymore.

I haven’t talked to him, but I hope he is planning that bike trip. I was going to say, I hope he’s somewhere in the midwest right now, but the snow is pretty deep there these days. Then again, he may have found a great programming job somewhere that he is absolutely loving. Whatever he is doing, I hope he is happy. Knowing David, I’d lay bets he’s doing very well.

Using Your Imagination

1. Dream about what you want to do when you retire. You may not do any of it, but it opens you up to ideas and gets your imagination juices flowing.

2. Go beyond dreaming a little and actually start learning a new skill. Something you’ve always wanted to do. I’ve been taking art classes and writing classes for the past couple of years.

3. Think back to when you weren’t working so hard and you had hobbies. What did you love to do? For that matter, what did you love to do when you were a kid? For me, it was getting the neighborhood kids together and putting on plays for our parents. In those days we charged a penny for admission!

4. I know this is repetitive, but it’s worth repeating. Use your imagination! For all the boomers reading this you may remember the Mouseketeers show where one of the Mouseketeers opened the drawers to day’s cartoon. I loved that part, I never knew what was in those drawers. They held such mystery and promise. Our imaginations are those drawers, just waiting to be opened.