As Labor Day approaches, it seems like the natural time to talk about the value of good, honest work. I heartily believe in it, and I heartily believe in the rewards of good, honest work; namely retirement. Probably the best thing about retirement is having the luxury of deciding what you will do today, or any other given day. The next best thing is knowing that you can just quit doing whatever it was you started on if you’re not having a good time and do something entirely different. You can just walk away and start over doing something else! That’s right, just leave it lying in the yard or the garage or wherever. It will still be there next week.
Now, some Georgia Tech graduate who majored in time management is shaking his beanie-capped head at this moment as he reads this in disbelief and disgust, because it does not fit his recipe for success. That leads us to the third best thing about retirement which is that you don’t really give a hoot about what anybody else thinks about you or your half-baked ideas, especially some Georgia Tech graduate. Don’t get me wrong. There are some good techies out there who don’t fit that mold, but in my experience, most of them are slaves to pressure. Pressure is a bad bird, and it will lead to stress and stress will get you an introduction to all the smiling, capable ladies who work in the emergency room. They tell you that everybody works better under a little pressure, and then in about ten or fifteen years, some doctor on You Tube will be telling you that you most likely have every health problem known to modern medical science. So don’t watch all that stuff. And by the way I was just kidding about Tech graduates. We don’t want them mad at us ‘cause we are gonna need those little engineering rascals to work in all the data centers coming soon. Hopefully, we will also have plenty of eagle-eyed lawyers from the University of Georgia Law School to keep them straight.
Long ago when I was in my single digits, I had two older cousins from Marshallville, Georgia (population 968) that I always looked up to. The oldest one went to Tech. He graduated, joined the Army, and moved right on up the ladder to high rank. The younger one tried Tech, then got his bearings straightened out and transferred to Georgia. He could talk an elephant into flying, and he was too busy having a good time to ever let pressure spoil the party. He managed one of the largest advertising firms in Atlanta and wrote and sang fight songs for the Georgia Bulldogs. Clisby didn’t believe in pressure because he left Peach County with a basket full of common sense. He loved saying that he never trusted a man who didn’t have strings in his shoes or cuffs in his pants. He had a great many other profound bits of wisdom. That’s the fourth best thing about retirement. The wisdom you learned from all those years behind you gives you a front row seat to watch the human parade pass by through the lens of all that life has taught you.
Finally, the fifth best thing about retirement is that you finally acquire a little more patience. Patience with the world and your fellow man and all the craziness around you can be the hardest thing to learn, but it is perhaps the most treasured. It means you have learned to care about and understand the good and the bad and the shortcomings and the wonder of all this swirling complexity that we call “life”. As we took our seats in church last Sunday, a younger friend who has just retired, greeted us with the question, “How did y'all enjoy yesterday?” For a moment, my wife and I exchanged a quick look of uncertainty, wondering if we had missed some special event. "No”, he assured us, “I was just talking about another ordinary wonderful day.” He was right on track! That is actually the best part of all of it. Patience allows us to not just exist and endure, but to slow down and revel in every bit of every day. It’s just that simple. So, there you are, the five best things about retirement. Here’s to Labor Day and all those hard workers who are out there putting in the time. I hope everyone has a great holiday. Now, I really have to wind this up. I’ve gotta go straighten up that project I started last week out in the garage before I get scolded. Have a great Labor Day!
