Issue 078
I had two brief conversations about retirement a while
ago. They both lasted less than three minutes yet they
opened up windows into the souls of the speakers.
The first conversation was with an ex- banker. I don’t
know him at all, so my interpretation of his comments
may be completely wrong. He expressed his horror,
however, at the thought of retirement. Though well
into the right age bracket, he had no intention of joining
those at the church fete whom he considered not to
have bowed out gracefully but to have thrown in the
towel. As the conversation proceeded his abhorrence
of having nothing to do became all too clear.
The second conversation was with a friend I know well.
A former missionary and head of a publishing house he
said, “I’m really getting the hang of this retirement idea –
and looking forward to it.”. A man with enough children
to form a basketball team (not a squad) and enough
grandchildren to form a football team, he clearly had
never made anything like as much money as the banker.
So why was one afraid of retirement and the other embracing
it? It would be arrogant of me to say I know all the
reasons but I can say that the conversations challenged
me to realise that preparation for retirement starts
now, not at the end of my career. And somewhere
along the line I’d better learn to invest in love just as
hard as I’ve invested in a pension scheme. Because love
not only drives out fear but love never ends. And
there’s no way I want to end my career afraid of
retirement. It’s too late to father a basketball team but
it’s not too late to foster relationships
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Work well
Geoff Shattock
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