What you are about to read might sound like a game but it isn’t. Instead, it’s a simple concept that could change your life, yet has never been explained before.
If you are sitting, stand, twist yourself to the left, and raise your extended left arm to about head high. Now move it slowly from the left around toward the center in front of you, then to the right as far as you can twist yourself.
You have just drawn an imaginary line from the point on your left that represents when you were born to the point on your right that represents when you die. In between is a lifetime of learning that begins at birth as a small stream but becomes ever wider and deeper to form a river of knowledge that continues to flow as long as you live.
Now, take that same arm and extend it again as you did before but this time drop it to waist high. Also, as you move your arm from left to right, move up and down several times in jagged fashion much as the teeth on a saw blade, each of which represents one of the several jobs one has during a lifetime. Some are large, some are small. Some last a long time, others a short time. Keep moving your arm to the right except this time, stop it well before it reaches that extreme right position.
You have just demonstrated that what our society calls “retirement” isn’t the retirement of anything. Instead, it’s simply you coming to the end of being or attempting to be steadily employed.
At the same time, however, that straight line you traced that represents what you have learned not only is still there, but will continue on just as it has since you were born. To use any of that gained knowledge, all you need do is reach up, pull it out of that river, and put it into action.
Said another way, instead of retiring, you have reached the point in your life where you are afforded the opportunity to choose what, how much, and when to put into play what you already know. It’s there as a large, valuable, and nearly unlimited resource for helping you either continue what you have been doing according to how you wish to do it, or beginning something new and even more challenging. If you have been prevented from genuinely enjoying what you do, you now have the freedom to make that change.
There are many ways to do that, but if you have yet to leave regular employment, here’s the strategy I used.
The morning after my last day at what had been my employer for 26 years, I told myself that starting right then, I had a new client—me! I decided that for the first six months I would just enjoy myself by doing whatever struck my fancy, catching up on a few things. Before doing that, however, and I admit that it sounds a bit weird, I imagined a large antenna which I fine tuned then hoisted to a high place. Then during those six months, I would be on the alert in case it signaled that an opportunity was about to be revealed to me.
Hard to believe but five and a half months later and almost a thousand miles from home, that’s exactly what happened and I did an immediate follow up.
The result was a personal project that lasted for fifteen years. It not only was profitable, but also gave me a national reputation in one aspect of the recreational industry. That, however, would have been nearly impossible had I not been able to tap into the exclusive river of knowledge I had created during all my formal working years.
Although many “retired” people do renew or intensify old interests such as golf and travel, or experiment with new ones, the resulting routine often fails to have lasting appeal. For several reasons, however, that will rarely happen to anyone who follows a strategy such as the one I used. The rewards and deep feelings of satisfaction will be too great.
Finally, no matter how long you have been “retired,” you can change course, comforted by the fact that the valuable river of knowledge is still there and at your service.
