SubscribeToday I tried to answer two intriguing emails from friends. Both men are…after unplanned layoffs….working, although in Mitch’s case he is nearing retirement and in Raoul’s case he is not yet 30. I consider both guys good friends. Otherwise I suspect Mitch and Raoul don’t have much in common, except that they both admit to deriving much of their identify from the work they do…certainly not unusual among the men I know. That said, even the work they do differs significantly; Mitch is a seasoned, senior executive most comfortable when facing difficult organizational challenges, while Raoul is an expert software sole-contributor-type consultant, most comfortable when working through extraordinarily complex computer network issues. It’s this issue of identification with their work that has caused me to stop and think a bit and as usual try to clarify my own still-uncertain perspectives on the meaning of work.
Before I go there, however, let me wander off into a quick reminisce about this past Fourth of July weekend, which Irene and I spent in the company of friends on their spectacularly groomed 15-acre farm outside the rapidly-growing and decidedly (albeit rural-y) upscale Atlanta bedroom suburb of Canton, GA. Our friends Ann and Tom are each retired from exacting professional disciplines themselves; Ann was a touring concert pianist under management to Columbia, Tom a senior veterinary surgeon and professor. And today, while they are retired, it’s hard to imagine them being less retiring…Ann, who seems to have almost inexhaustible energy still, is a strong contender for the Martha Stewart award, given every year to the Southern hostess with the most-ess….but who also conducts music appreciation classes in her home, organizes book clubs, does friends-of-everything benefits, grows most of the food they eat and prepares it all in beautiful and unusual ways and even plays decent pickleball in her spare time. Tom, in turn, owns (and by this I mean he does) all the outside work around the farm, hiring only a few people to assist him, and in the meantime they both are prosletizing pickleball among the community and, on the two days we played with them, 12 and 8 other pickleball players showed up, on the busier day giving us three-courts-full of the four courts possible to play on their property…an excellent local turnout and an example of their generosity of spirit, time and place.
Why do I mention Ann and Tom and how does it related to Mitch and Raoul and this question of balance? Well, Mitch’s comments to me recently have been around how grateful he is that he again HAS a job, even though he is clear this will be his last job before he retires. He talks about how humbling the last ten months’ search for employment has been for him, even though he considers himself in some ways a humble guy to begin with…something I agree with, by the way; he is humble, in the good sense, and not because he would need to be, either. And Raoul? Raoul, straight up, is a workaholic, and when he lost HIS job six months ago, before long he was busier than ever as a computer and networking consultant and as a programmer, writing and implementing the programs he would recommend as necessary to his clients, a nice one-two punch of capabilities. Where Mitch is grateful for the new job and humbled by how hard even HE had to work to get it, Raoul is busier than ever and doesn’t have time to think about whether or not he is humble at all.
Melding in Tom and Ann’s experiences, both when working and after they quit, and you see that, in this small sample of four folks, these high-achieving people all work hard and they often continue to work hard whether or not they are gainfully employed per se (meaning, whether or not they get paid money to work), and they all get some satisfaction from contributing and some sense of self from the work itself, but they realize, usually down the line, that less is more relative to employment. Tom and Ann are there, Mitch is nearly there, and, although Raoul is NOT there (”there” being conscious of less work being more), he IS asking questions about balance that surely EYE never asked when I was his age, being…wait for it….too busy working to think of balance.
For me, I have a persistent thought (or is it a hope?) that my own work-life isn’t yet through, that there is one more page to be turned in in my work-book. But, unfortunately (or fortunately, I don’t know), I can’t read what’s on that page yet. As I mentioned recently a number of things that could become work still appeal to me…antiquarian book dealership, antiques in general, collecting (meaning buying and selling) artifacts about poker and gambling and fly-fishing, playing professional poker, writing at some level, selling my own book(s) and that of my brilliant brother the Judge….oh, and more, I’m sure.
And then there is the question of balance in my own life. When I STOPPED working…finally…in 2006, it took a good while for my psyche to understand that I was no longer working but that I had not disappeared because of it. And, truth be known, I’m still not entirely comfortable with my new identify, whatever it is, except that it seems to be more about me and less about what I used to do, in so far as I now know who “me” is, at least. And then there’s the whole question about who writes about you…and about Mitch, and Raoul, and Tom, and Ann, if it isn’t me, and if I’m off working, how do I do that, assuming it really does need to be done? Which of course makes one wonder if you can do both and make a living out of writing something…which I have certainly tried to do in the past, although I failed miserably at it…but haven’t the times and publishing opportunities changed now, and does that create new opportunities for Moi? Or not? Should I follow it up? Or just think about it all a whole bunch more? Eventually, the problem will resolve itself, but given typical life expectancy that could be awhile yet…..
What to do, what to do……