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Friday June 8, 2001
"Retirement is the time when you never do all the things you intended to do when you'd have the time" unattribed in 20,000 Quips and Quotes edited by Evan Esar
Normandy memory
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retirement It helps to know you can retire even if you don't. I'm not really sure I can, of course. I have friends who have done it and then gone back to work. Because they actually needed the money or thought they did. That doesn't count. That's a sabbatical. Retiring is never having to work again if you don't want to. When things are too silly at work, it helps to know that your life is not the work but something else where you might be retired from the work. Before you die. I'm not sure what I expect from myself at work. Or what others expect. My time in this job has had enormous productivity and enormous waste of same through false starts, politics and bureaucracy. Just like every other company. Every other job. And just like my real life and other pursuits. I didn't find time for lunch. Well, some free potato chips and a free apple. Fringe benefits. I had conference calls. I felt useless. I wrote e-mails expressing my positions and read e-mails from others trying to refine it. I felt frustrated. I listened to discussions about pricing until my eyes glaced over. In the midst of a conference call, I saw that FFP was calling and sent him an e-mail ("can't answer phone, reply to this if you need me"). The e-mail said we were invited to Emilia's for food and wine as the guests of some good buddies. Wow. That made my day! My weekend. I needed a chance to step away from the madness. Forget about. Live. Eat. Drink. Ah.... ...that's the life. Sipping beautiful French wines out of nice crystal. Eating succulent food including foie gras and arguably the best lamb I've ever tasted. Wow! This is what life should be like. Yes, the good food and wine elevated my mood. And also the attitude that I've adopted, too. I'm not totally in control of the situation. But the consequences won't be totally mine to bear either. And I could retire, couldn't I? And every day I don't do it makes the food and wine of retirement sweeter because I have another day of putting in and one less day of taking out. But I could retire. And that comforts me. |
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