The other day, I was trying to find something listenable on the radio and scanned to a sports talk show where they were discussing the case of Mike Lowell. It isn't fair, the commentators said, that an All-Star, clutch player, good guy in the club house, who's thinking about retirement and may end a very good career while sitting on the bench.
A few days later, Jeff announced that he's
giving up his day job as a taxi driver. (Fortunately for us all, he's not giving up writing.)
That led to other thoughts about retirement. As much as we'd like to go out as Ted Williams did, with a home run in our last at-bat, retirement often finds us. Work slows to a stop. We get sick. We get tired. We run to the front porch and shout to the world, "Might as well."
We don't get to do that victory lap. We stop work and a few co-workers whom we consider to be friends might notice. The rest go on with their lives because that's what people do.
Sites such as
LinkedIn and
Facebook let you connect with friends from past work and past lives. The story about how you got from way-back-there up to here gets whittled down from several paragraphs to one paragraph to two or, better yet, one sentence. Your good friends will want the whole story about your decision to retire while others need just a quick summary that they can carry in their pocket.
In sickness or in health, we go on to what's next.
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