Tag: Rest

Retiring without retreating

I was interested to read in yesterday’s i Newspaper that more than a quarter of retired over 65s said they gave up their careers too soon – and a fifth were disappointed by their retirement. Very sadly, 33% of respondents said their ‘grand dreams’ for retirement had not come to fruition. (All part of a survey of 1,000 people conducted by the home care provider, Home Instead Senior Care.) 

Social care survey

As someone who has ‘retired’ in my early 60s, there are some survey findings with which I can empathise: 25% said their day no longer had a routine – and I had ‘enjoyed’ (and now appreciate more than ever) a very regular school, term-time and holiday routine for 38 years; 45% of those polled said that what they missed most about their work was the time spent with colleagues – and it’s this I miss the most. I would also add to this the loss of opportunity seeing young people flourish, all part of my vocation as a Schoolmaster.

I am, of course, adjusting and there’s much I don’t miss – especially the stress of exam results at this time in the year and the inevitable pressure from those parents of the few pupils who have fallen short in their aspirations. Further pressure to maintain the pupil roll and to answer the angry (and often unrealistic ‘wine o’ clock) email are also features of school life that I don’t harp back to.

Keeping on working as long as you can

Interestingly, in another feature in yesterday’s Press we read of Nicholas Parsons who, aged 95, has missed only his second recording of BBC4’s ‘Just a minute’ in 50 years of broadcasting. If you ever listen to the programme, you can tell that this is someone who never wants to retire from his ‘day job’ – and good for him, too.  (I should add that whilst my parents are in their 80s and 90s they still enjoy some regular paid employment – which they also enjoy!)

Doing nothing?

A further article, by Siobhan Norton in the i Newspaper, extolled the virtues of ‘fjaka’ – the Croatian art of doing nothing. This is the perfection of the art of siesta without sleeping – a sort of meditation, even lethargy, as one stares off into the middle distance; ‘look on and make no sound’. This writer realised that when on holiday it might be a blessing to go off-line, at least for a time, and so escape the tyranny of ‘just checking my device’ – again and again.  But then, of course, this is not retirement but, perhaps, preparation for it.

A productive retirement

Whilst I find echoes in my own semi-retired situation of some of the traits mentioned above in the survey, I cannot say that I fully concur. As I have just noted, I am only semi-retired: I retired from schoolmastering (and headmastering) full-time last summer but since this April I have taken up a part-time post, using my school experience, to support Christian Heads, Chaplains and Teachers in the independent sector. I was fortunate to be able to plan to retire rather than have it thrust upon me owing to ill-health, dismissal or redundancy. I do still miss my old routines, the camaraderie of the staff room and the excitement of young people learning and gaining fresh insights. However, I have tried to ‘Retire without retreating’ (and can recommend a  book of this title by Johnnie Godwin). Taking a sabbatical off paid work has helped and I am trying to ‘age with grace’ by keeping active through sport and gardening, spending time with family (aged from a few months to the mid-90s) and enjoying getting to know my wife all over again. These adjustments are rarely easy and are never fully mastered but I would urge everyone to plan early for a productive retirement – and that’s not just by paying into a pension scheme!

Rhythm, routines and refreshment

Retirement – continued

I wrote recently (‘Retiring but not retreating) about what a strange experience it was when I found myself taking my grandson to school for the first time and what it was like ‘on the other side of the fence’ as a carer rather than a teacher. As we have reached my first half-term break from the unfamiliar perspective of outside of the school gates, I have experienced other sensations, no doubt common to other retirees.

Pool and pints

I met three former colleagues socially for a game of pool and a glass of beer on the first evening of the break. I enjoyed their company and the competitiveness of the game but I felt strangely ‘out of it’. I wasn’t especially weary – they commented on how fresh and relaxed I was looking – and in an odd way I envied them their tiredness. I felt they had earned their pints and pool whilst I had not. No doubt this is my usual warped Calvinist work ethic coming out, but therein lies a message. I have given up one very tiring, stressful but fulfilling job – schoolmastering – and have yet to take up another cause. It’s good to rest, to be reflective and to feel refreshed, of course, but I am experiencing some restlessness and need to take on board the advice in Adam Mabry’s book, The Art of Rest.

The art of rest

The subtitle of Mabry’s book is ‘faith to hit pause in a world that never stops’ – and he is primarily writing for those still in regular, paid, work. Whatever your faith position (the author is a Pastor), Mabry’s advice is universal. He cites one of Mother Teresa’s pearls of wisdom: ‘Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin’. And so I am learning ‘to begin’: to sleep for a decent stretch of time by going to bed not too late and rising not so late either – routines for retirees are important, too, and perhaps more so when there isn’t the urgency of staff briefing, registration and lessons. I’m learning to read more and not to feel guilty about reading a book when it isn’t part of a bedtime routine or a holiday luxury. I am trying to be more reflective. I wrote blogs weekly as a Head and these, I hope, carried some thought and reflection. The motivation then, however, was partly marketing and partly highlighting events in school whereas now, I hope, I can be more objective in my blogging.

As a Christian pastor, Mabry is also advocating more time for a proper Sabbath rest (and not simply on a Sunday) as well as less hurried times of prayer and Scripture reading. I’m trying to be more proactive in this area, too, but I am also taken with his emphasis on taking on an avocation. I wasn’t familiar with this word until I read it in his book – essentially something one does which isn’t your principle vocation – but I am enjoying the concept and the practice. I have played more golf (as mentioned in an earlier blog) but I am also enjoying doing things with my hands: gardening and, recently, re-painting a sad looking and elderly garden gnome (acquired at some point in my university days)!  He now looks happier, more colourful and refreshed – as I aspire to be.

There is more for me to ‘do’ as I take this sabbatical and learn how to establish positive rhythms and routines, but I hope that I shall actually learn that ‘doing’ is not always the same as ‘being’. My worth does not lie in what I do but in who I am and so the next time I play pool with former colleagues I hope I will be more gracious in accepting their comments about my rejuvenated state and prepared to accept that ‘yesterday’ has indeed gone (but valuable times for all that). And as for ‘tomorrow’…that depends on how I learn to rest and reflect ‘today’!