Finding the Meaning in Retirement

The first time I remember the switch flipping was during my Freshman Honors Algebra class in high school. Most of my classmates had studied algebra in 8th grade and were already proficient manipulators of operations, equations, and variables. I was encountering these concepts for the first time and I was struggling. I asked my uncle Poldi, an engineer, for assistance, and worked with him for an hour in his dining room.

And suddenly, I got it. I don’t know if Poldi was responsible, but a switch in my head clicked on; algebra came into focus, enough for me to raise my grade from a D to a B+ in a mere ten weeks.

That’s how I operate. Malcolm Gladwell has his 10,000 hours until mastery rule, but that’s not how I progress. Things don’t come to me gradually, they come to me in a rush, all at once—as if a finger is pushing a button deep in my frontal lobe.

Prostate pathology came to me the same way. Suddenly I had the utmost confidence that I could diagnose prostate cancer. That confidence never failed me.

I never know when to expect a click. They have come in the middle of a college physics exam and the fourth frame of a bowling line. A month ago it happened on a pickleball court—though admittedly a new paddle helped flip the switch.

Clicking never happened in tennis; I never had a sudden surge in my skills and never gained mastery. I fear I am headed for the same sad outcome in golf but I have no way of foretelling if on some glorious, sunshiny day, the grip and the swing and the follow-through will all come together and I can say “I got this.”

There is one more thing I am still waiting to get, waiting for a click. It is more of an abstract, metaphysical one. I have been retired for almost two years. When asked how I like my current circumstances, I always truthfully respond in the positive. I retired at the right time with the right motivation. Yet I still await the light to turn on to understand what retirement means and what is it for.

Yes, I keep busy with golf and pickleball. I read and I write. I have a pathology-related consulting gig and participate in a generous smorgasbord of volunteer activities. Barb and I do some traveling and babysit as needed.

But so far those activities don’t give me the answer to the purpose of my retirement or how I can make it meaningful. The web offers advice (find your passion, set goals, etc), workbooks are available, and workshops too. Although it seems like a lot of work, maybe I will travel down that route. Or maybe I’ll wait for something to click, just like high school algebra. It’s the rest of my life and this time I want straight A’s.