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Friday, June 19, 2009

The C Word

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:: mid-life, excerpt

Change, like death and taxes, is unavoidable and scary. The essence of change is giving up something old and familiar in favor of something new and unfamiliar. Even if you retire willingly from a job you hate, with enough money and good health and a loving spouse, the change can be stressful. The stress can become overwhelming if you are forced to retire from a job you like, with little money or bad health or a relationship on the rocks. It’s like being dumped from a warm bed into icy, sharkinfested water .

Too much C word can make you cycle from fear, to anger, to depression, to fear, to anger, to depression, and so on—like a hamster on a wheel going flat-out and getting nowhere. At those times, I’ve found that the best thing to do is to pause and literally take a breath. Lie down, close your eyes, and take long, slow breaths. Tell yourself:

It’s just change.
These feelings will pass,
and I will remain
a good little hamster—
I mean person.

Strange as it seems, when you’re in hamster mode, at some point during retirement you will go from fearing the C word to craving it—because life without enough change is predictable and boring. Every Sunday you have skinless chicken breasts and sort out a week’s worth of pills into that plastic thingy. Every Monday you take out the trash and change the blah blah. Tuesdays you go to your blah meeting and see blah blah. Wednesdays you blah and blah and more blah. It’s like not being dumped from tepid, you-infested water.

If you’re bored in retirement, consider making a sudden U-turn. Although most people change slowly and gradually, there are exceptions, and maybe you’re one of them. Acquiring new habits doesn’t have to be slow. Radical, sweeping, instant, 180-degree change can happen to you.

Until I was thirty, I hated cars. They were a necessary evil—expensive, polluting, noisy, mechanically mysterious, and always breaking down at the worst possible moment. Then somebody left a book about classic-car restoration at my house, and I idly picked it up one evening. I stayed up all night reading it. Over the next twenty years I bought, restored, and sold several cars and trucks from the thirties, forties, and fifties. I went from being a car hater to being a stone car guy overnight. I learned about engines and design history and restoration techniques. I did most of the work myself, acquiring many tools and skills. I got years of pleasure from a hobby I used to consider a stupid waste of time. I still haven’t gotten all the grease out from under my fingernails.

I like to remember this 180-degree change when I feel bored. I remind myself that I don’t have to remain as I am: a sarcastic, snobbish, blue-state man into writing and film and classical music. If I get bored enough, I can become a sincere, gregarious, red-state guy who loves baseball and beer and country music.

Sounds like fun.

Excerpt from Not Dead Yet... and One or Two Other Good Things About Retirement by Patrick Fanning.

Posted By / 12:00 AM / Friday, June 19, 2009