A week ago today I posted about my last day on the job as a salaried employee of 'corporate America'. At the time, I was feeling a tad overwhelmed by the emotion of the long awaited moment, and the pang of parting company with colleagues of whom I was--and am--very fond of. Today though I'm a week into 'retirement' and the emotion, while still there, has been lessened by the passage of a few days.
So, one might ask, how does it feel so far? The answer I would give is "basically pretty good," but with plenty of adjusting left for me to do. The first thing I noticed is that this first week seemed to pass much more quickly than my last week at work. That I suppose is because my stress level is greatly reduced, and I'm no longer anticipating the 'big day when I leave my job' to come in the future. It has already come and gone, rapidly receding in the rear view mirror of life.
One thing I immediately realized is how much I do not want to be tied into schedule and work commitments right now. For all of my work life, I was very disciplined at work. I got to work on time, I worked scads of overtime, and I met deadlines consistently. It wasn't particularly difficult for me; I think I was kind of wired that way.
In these very first days of retirement, the very idea of being locked into somebody else's work schedule--even if it is in a good cause--feels confining and indeed claustrophobic; not something I want to be doing right now. For four plus decades, I've been 'on duty' with my time and attention focused on tasks or activities determined by someone else. I find myself in mental rebellion against this now. The best way I can describe it it is that I just need some time to get my head on straight once more.
Also, I have a health challenge that demands my attention and response. Years of a two-hours-in-the-vehicle, one hundred mile-a-day commute and a sedentary life sitting in a cubicle staring into a computer screen took their toll on me both mentally and physically. I gained weight, didn't get enough exercise, and at age 64 finally got myself pulled over by the blood sugar police.
After my last lab workup at the end of January, the doctor looked at my lab results and pronounced that medication and a glucose meter were in my future, with fingers to be pricked twice a day, morning and night. Deep down, I have known for some time that the life I was leading was taking me there; the last two or three sets of lab results showing my fasting glucose level creeping higher was a none-to-subtle hint. But--too bad for me--just as my retirement date arrived, so did the diagnosis and beginning of treatment.
The good news about this is that my glucose level was not so high as to be dire, but it was high enough to demand action---action I already knew I needed to take but could not bring myself to while I was working. So, for the moment, I'm trying to channel some of the discipline I had when on the job to eating the right things, taking my meds and my glucose readings in accordance with the doctor's directions, and getting myself going on a regular exercise program. At the end of week one, so far so good on that.
Also, I can already feel inside myself the rumblings of desire to do things that will take some discipline. If I am going to write, any kind of serious work will require me to be much mor disciplined than I have been in this first week. The same can be said for renewing and revitalizing my photography. doing various indoor and outdoor projects that need doing--et cetera, et cetera.
So at the end of week one, I feel quite resolute about staying 'on message' about controlling my glucose levels, losing weight, and getting in better physical condition. These are 'musts.' The other stuff though is more in the 'nice to have' column. Those things will come too, but they doesn't have to come yet today.
Friday, March 02, 2012
Friday, February 24, 2012
Retirement Day
Finally, at, long long last, a crucial milestone arrived for me. Today marked the end of my career as a salaried employee in the corporate world. I have retired--officially, for real, and starting right now.
The day was exhilarating and also very emotional. I've worked with many of my former colleagues for several years, and know them well. They gave me a great send-off this afternoon, which I thoroughly enjoyed and for the most part avoiding shedding tears, although there were a few moments that were tough that way. I will miss having a day to day interaction with them, and especially those with whom I worked most closely with. I hope that the future brings all of them blessings and prosperity to them and their families.
For me, retirement represents the long awaited opportunity to do things that I have always wanted to to do but could not due to the commitment that a full time job in a career setting requires. Writing, photography, working in my shop, and theater come to mind, but also travel and most definitely working on maintaining and and improving my health.
As I turn the page to this new chapter, I am grateful--first simply to have lived this long, and to afforded the opportunity to live this way. Sadly, many of my younger colleagues have been so conditioned by the poor economic conditions of the last few years that they tend to view retirement by anyone like they would if they say a real live Sasquatch crossing throad. Even though it has taken many many years for me to get to this point, their amazed reaction makes me feel humble, and grateful to the universe that I am able to do this.
I will do everything I can from this point forward to concentrate, not on what I don't have, but on what I do have, and to try to remember to be consciously grateful for it each and every day.
The day was exhilarating and also very emotional. I've worked with many of my former colleagues for several years, and know them well. They gave me a great send-off this afternoon, which I thoroughly enjoyed and for the most part avoiding shedding tears, although there were a few moments that were tough that way. I will miss having a day to day interaction with them, and especially those with whom I worked most closely with. I hope that the future brings all of them blessings and prosperity to them and their families.
For me, retirement represents the long awaited opportunity to do things that I have always wanted to to do but could not due to the commitment that a full time job in a career setting requires. Writing, photography, working in my shop, and theater come to mind, but also travel and most definitely working on maintaining and and improving my health.
As I turn the page to this new chapter, I am grateful--first simply to have lived this long, and to afforded the opportunity to live this way. Sadly, many of my younger colleagues have been so conditioned by the poor economic conditions of the last few years that they tend to view retirement by anyone like they would if they say a real live Sasquatch crossing throad. Even though it has taken many many years for me to get to this point, their amazed reaction makes me feel humble, and grateful to the universe that I am able to do this.
I will do everything I can from this point forward to concentrate, not on what I don't have, but on what I do have, and to try to remember to be consciously grateful for it each and every day.
Friday, December 09, 2011
On Writers Block
The term ‘writers block’ is one that who has tried to write can relate to. One of the most descriptive—and twisted and warped—examples of writers block is told in the Stephen King’s novel (and visually depicted vividly by actor Jack Nicholson in Stanley Kubrick’s movie) ‘The Shining.’ We see recovering alcoholic and would-be writer Jack Torrance as he maniacally keys his typewriter in the cavernous Colorado Lounge of the haunted Overlook Hotel, cut off from the world by fierce Rocky Mountain blizzards.
For all his typing, Jack only gets a single word goes on the paper, and it is psychotically repeated line after line, page after page. The word Jack typed was ‘redrum’, which of course is ‘murder’ spelled backwards, and it was the only word that the crazed and increasingly homicidal writer was able to get on paper.
Wanting—needing—to write and being unable to get words down on paper can drive indeed you crazy, and you don’t have to be in a haunted hotel for it to happen to you, either. My experience of it is a result of feeling that I just don’t have anything worth say. However, when I dig deeper, I have always found that my inner censor, that little man who sits on my shoulder and tells me that whatever I might think of writing about has already been ‘done’ by somebody.
Originality is not that difficult to achieve; we are unique individuals who each perceive things in our own unique way. If several people all sat down with the same outline and each wrote a story, you would end up with as many original stories as you had people. Each person would write from that outline in a uniquely different way. That’s not to say that any of these hypothetical people would produce a story you would really want to read, but at least they would manage to write it differently and it would be original.
So, worrying about originality is really a pretty poor excuse for a writer not writing. In my experience, I think my biggest cause of writer’s block is just plain laziness. Writing takes effort, just like exercise in a way. When you write you exercise your powers of concentration (and your fingers) in a very particular way, and it takes effort. The better you want to write, the more effort you have to expend.
Being a creative person is pretty easy; to do that I (or anyone) can just hang a label on myself saying ‘Creative Person-Kick Here’. But actually being creative—actually writing something you think someone else might like to read and find worthwhile—is a lot harder, because you have to reach down inside yourself and find the energy to tap into your muse and then actively do the writing itself.
Writing is not a state of being, it is something you actively do. Note to self: remember this and act accordingly.
For all his typing, Jack only gets a single word goes on the paper, and it is psychotically repeated line after line, page after page. The word Jack typed was ‘redrum’, which of course is ‘murder’ spelled backwards, and it was the only word that the crazed and increasingly homicidal writer was able to get on paper.
Wanting—needing—to write and being unable to get words down on paper can drive indeed you crazy, and you don’t have to be in a haunted hotel for it to happen to you, either. My experience of it is a result of feeling that I just don’t have anything worth say. However, when I dig deeper, I have always found that my inner censor, that little man who sits on my shoulder and tells me that whatever I might think of writing about has already been ‘done’ by somebody.
Originality is not that difficult to achieve; we are unique individuals who each perceive things in our own unique way. If several people all sat down with the same outline and each wrote a story, you would end up with as many original stories as you had people. Each person would write from that outline in a uniquely different way. That’s not to say that any of these hypothetical people would produce a story you would really want to read, but at least they would manage to write it differently and it would be original.
So, worrying about originality is really a pretty poor excuse for a writer not writing. In my experience, I think my biggest cause of writer’s block is just plain laziness. Writing takes effort, just like exercise in a way. When you write you exercise your powers of concentration (and your fingers) in a very particular way, and it takes effort. The better you want to write, the more effort you have to expend.
Being a creative person is pretty easy; to do that I (or anyone) can just hang a label on myself saying ‘Creative Person-Kick Here’. But actually being creative—actually writing something you think someone else might like to read and find worthwhile—is a lot harder, because you have to reach down inside yourself and find the energy to tap into your muse and then actively do the writing itself.
Writing is not a state of being, it is something you actively do. Note to self: remember this and act accordingly.
Thursday, December 08, 2011
How We Get To Be That Way
When I was growing up, the importance of perseverance was drummed into my head by my parents. I vividly recall wanting to join my high school's band, but being rebuffed by my folks as not being ‘industrious’ enough to merit their spending the money for a musical instrument for me to play. They were afraid, they said, that they would spend the money for a band instrument for me (I fancied the trumpet as I recall) only to have me drop out of the band program because I found the practice and other work was too demanding. I tried hard to persuade them that wouldn't happen, but they wouldn’t budge.
I was not a stellar student in elementary school or high school, but, to this day, I really don’t know what caused the ‘rents’ to take that position with me. I hadn't been a quitter, and my grades were 'OK'. It was true that I had considered ‘going out’ for varsity football, but had decided against it (looked too painful to me), which the ‘rents’ knew, so maybe that played in to their reaction. Whatever their real reason, denying me that opportunity for the reasons they gave was deeply humiliating to this bookish (the term nerd hadn’t been invented yet) newly minted high school freshman.
But, because of the kind of kid I was, and because they were normally pretty generous and protective with me, I did believe that somehow I deserved the response I got from them, even though I didn’t really understand the ‘why’ of it—and still don’t.
That incident loomed quite large in my young mind at the time, and so I was imprinted in a way that would continue until the current day, over a half century later. I deeply internalized the idea that in order to be industrious, you had to be willing to stick to things and that meant through thick and thin. “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” You can’t be industrious and be a quitter. Therefore, I had—indeed still have—the notion that ‘stick-to-it-iveness’ isn’t just a great virtue to have, it is an absolutely essential one. In the course of a forty-three plus years in the corporate/business world, my being willing to stick it out and keep going through adverse situations has paid off in a big way for me more than once.
However, as my life experience has increased over the years, I have found that some things we believe to be our virtues can in some situations act as double-edged swords. In my case, I have found that my ability to persevere has a dark ‘flip side’; sometimes I stay too long in a situation where I would actually be better off embracing change.
As the ‘Serenity Prayer’ says, “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
More of all three of these, please, but the third one is the one I need the most!
I was not a stellar student in elementary school or high school, but, to this day, I really don’t know what caused the ‘rents’ to take that position with me. I hadn't been a quitter, and my grades were 'OK'. It was true that I had considered ‘going out’ for varsity football, but had decided against it (looked too painful to me), which the ‘rents’ knew, so maybe that played in to their reaction. Whatever their real reason, denying me that opportunity for the reasons they gave was deeply humiliating to this bookish (the term nerd hadn’t been invented yet) newly minted high school freshman.
But, because of the kind of kid I was, and because they were normally pretty generous and protective with me, I did believe that somehow I deserved the response I got from them, even though I didn’t really understand the ‘why’ of it—and still don’t.
That incident loomed quite large in my young mind at the time, and so I was imprinted in a way that would continue until the current day, over a half century later. I deeply internalized the idea that in order to be industrious, you had to be willing to stick to things and that meant through thick and thin. “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” You can’t be industrious and be a quitter. Therefore, I had—indeed still have—the notion that ‘stick-to-it-iveness’ isn’t just a great virtue to have, it is an absolutely essential one. In the course of a forty-three plus years in the corporate/business world, my being willing to stick it out and keep going through adverse situations has paid off in a big way for me more than once.
However, as my life experience has increased over the years, I have found that some things we believe to be our virtues can in some situations act as double-edged swords. In my case, I have found that my ability to persevere has a dark ‘flip side’; sometimes I stay too long in a situation where I would actually be better off embracing change.
As the ‘Serenity Prayer’ says, “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
More of all three of these, please, but the third one is the one I need the most!
Wednesday, December 07, 2011
December 7, 2011 - Thought For The Day
Seventy years ago today the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor; "a date which will live in infamy” in the words of then President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Roosevelt actually spoke those famous words to the nation the day after the attack--December 8, 1941--and within one hour after he concluded his speech, Congress voted to declare war with Japan.
For many years after Pearl Harbor, just the mere mention of the date itself—December 7—had the same significance to most Americans as the mention of September 11 has today. We memorialize days like December 7, 1941 and September 11, 2001 and November 22, 1963 because the events that occurred on these dates were so psychologically vivid and traumatic that they are engraved—indeed scorched—into our minds and memories to remain there as scars on our psyches for the rest of our lives. For as long as we live, we hear or read the date and in true Pavlovian fashion we remember all to vividly the tragic events that occurred.
I can’t escape the feeling that we might be better off as a species if our minds were wired a bit differently. We remember tragedy all too vividly, but the good days—maybe not quite as much.
But, we also experience days that are memorable for their goodness, for the happy emotions we felt. Mostly these good memorable days are personal to us: the day we graduated from school, they day we met the love of our life, the day we got married, the day or days our children were born or were adopted, the day our child won an award or achieved recognition. But a few—a very, very few—of the ‘good days’ we experience get enough media attention to also be writ large on our collective memories. July 21, 1969, comes to mind; the date when Neil Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface and said "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."
As I get older, the ‘good days’ and the dates associated with them are the ones I want to remember as vividly as I can and to memorialize. The tragic, ‘bad days’—not so much.
For many years after Pearl Harbor, just the mere mention of the date itself—December 7—had the same significance to most Americans as the mention of September 11 has today. We memorialize days like December 7, 1941 and September 11, 2001 and November 22, 1963 because the events that occurred on these dates were so psychologically vivid and traumatic that they are engraved—indeed scorched—into our minds and memories to remain there as scars on our psyches for the rest of our lives. For as long as we live, we hear or read the date and in true Pavlovian fashion we remember all to vividly the tragic events that occurred.
I can’t escape the feeling that we might be better off as a species if our minds were wired a bit differently. We remember tragedy all too vividly, but the good days—maybe not quite as much.
But, we also experience days that are memorable for their goodness, for the happy emotions we felt. Mostly these good memorable days are personal to us: the day we graduated from school, they day we met the love of our life, the day we got married, the day or days our children were born or were adopted, the day our child won an award or achieved recognition. But a few—a very, very few—of the ‘good days’ we experience get enough media attention to also be writ large on our collective memories. July 21, 1969, comes to mind; the date when Neil Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface and said "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."
As I get older, the ‘good days’ and the dates associated with them are the ones I want to remember as vividly as I can and to memorialize. The tragic, ‘bad days’—not so much.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Remembering
Tomorrow, American’s will mark the tenth anniversary of 9/11. Ten years have elapsed since that day—ten not always very kind years, I reflect as I look back on them.
I was working at the headquarters of a large technology company in the Bay Area on 9/11, and I remember that day and the immediate days following vividly. There was confusion in the office the morning of 9/11 when I arrived. One of our co-workers had become a national hero that morning, helping overpower the terrorists on United Flight 93, but none of us knew of his heroism as we arrived at work that morning. All of us were shaken to our very cores, and we weren’t sure if the office really should be open, but there was a sense that most of us had that a giant enterprise like ours, with offices and operations all over the world, really had to keep on functioning, at least as much as we could. And, so for the balance of the day of 9/11, we did just that.
A few days later—on the second or maybe the third day after 9/11, I don’t remember exactly—the company announced that at approximately ten in the morning, employees would voluntarily gather outside on sidewalks around the saltwater lagoon that our company’s campus buildings cluster around on three sides) for a moment of silence in remembrance of the fallen.
At that time, the company I worked for had somewhere between eleven and twelve thousand people working at the headquarters campus. On that day, with a clear blue sky and the sun brightly shining overhead, all of these people—I was just one of very many—rode the elevators and walked down the stairs to the ground floor, and out into that brilliantly beautiful sunshine.
As we exited the buildings, we passed by volunteers handing out small American flags you could hold in your hand. We filed around the placid lagoon, surrounding it completely, five, six or even seven rows of people deep on all sides. At least ten thousand people—enough people to fill a college football stadium—every one of us with an American flag in our hands. We were silent except for our footfalls as we took up our places; there was none of the usual greetings, banter that occurs when people get together. There was no joking or small talk, no debates, no arguments.
Some employees like me were US born and raised in the US, but many others—a majority actually—were from India, China, the Philippines, Iran, Japan, Israel, Canada, Mexico, the UK, France, and all over the world. Our gathering had representatives from all the major world religions: Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish, atheist and agnostic. We stood next to each other, shoulder to shoulder, sad, and respectfully silent. Each of us held one of those small American flags in our hands.
That day we were, regardless of race or national origin, Americans.
At least ten thousand people, janitors, administrative assistants, cooks, security guards, software developers, marketing people, accountants, mid and top level executives, and the company’s founder and CEO, who for a brief time had been literally ‘the richest man in the world’, all stood together on that beautiful, sad, sunny day, all of us holding an American flag in our hands.
Over ten thousand people—married, single, gay, straight, lesbian—all stood sadly, respectfully, shoulder to shoulder on than brilliantly sunny morning, united in our sense of loss, our sadness at what had just happened, with an American flag held in each of our twenty thousand hands.
That day took place under that azure sky in September 2001. Here we all stood, over ten thousand men and women strong. A more diverse group you could scarcely imagine coming together in place, but on that day, there was no partisan rancor, there was no ideological or racial or religious division, or disrespect for anyone's sexual preference. In that moment we were united in our solemnity, and in the love and respect we all had the country that we all lived in together. Our ten thousand small American flags quietly fluttered in the light breeze; there was a sea of red, white and blue everywhere I looked.
The memory of seeing of all those people standing so quietly, so respectfully, unified in emotion and in purpose is a sight I will take with me all the rest of my life. I’ve never been so proud to be an American, and at the same moment never so sad to be one as I was on that day.
I was working at the headquarters of a large technology company in the Bay Area on 9/11, and I remember that day and the immediate days following vividly. There was confusion in the office the morning of 9/11 when I arrived. One of our co-workers had become a national hero that morning, helping overpower the terrorists on United Flight 93, but none of us knew of his heroism as we arrived at work that morning. All of us were shaken to our very cores, and we weren’t sure if the office really should be open, but there was a sense that most of us had that a giant enterprise like ours, with offices and operations all over the world, really had to keep on functioning, at least as much as we could. And, so for the balance of the day of 9/11, we did just that.
A few days later—on the second or maybe the third day after 9/11, I don’t remember exactly—the company announced that at approximately ten in the morning, employees would voluntarily gather outside on sidewalks around the saltwater lagoon that our company’s campus buildings cluster around on three sides) for a moment of silence in remembrance of the fallen.
At that time, the company I worked for had somewhere between eleven and twelve thousand people working at the headquarters campus. On that day, with a clear blue sky and the sun brightly shining overhead, all of these people—I was just one of very many—rode the elevators and walked down the stairs to the ground floor, and out into that brilliantly beautiful sunshine.
As we exited the buildings, we passed by volunteers handing out small American flags you could hold in your hand. We filed around the placid lagoon, surrounding it completely, five, six or even seven rows of people deep on all sides. At least ten thousand people—enough people to fill a college football stadium—every one of us with an American flag in our hands. We were silent except for our footfalls as we took up our places; there was none of the usual greetings, banter that occurs when people get together. There was no joking or small talk, no debates, no arguments.
Some employees like me were US born and raised in the US, but many others—a majority actually—were from India, China, the Philippines, Iran, Japan, Israel, Canada, Mexico, the UK, France, and all over the world. Our gathering had representatives from all the major world religions: Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish, atheist and agnostic. We stood next to each other, shoulder to shoulder, sad, and respectfully silent. Each of us held one of those small American flags in our hands.
That day we were, regardless of race or national origin, Americans.
At least ten thousand people, janitors, administrative assistants, cooks, security guards, software developers, marketing people, accountants, mid and top level executives, and the company’s founder and CEO, who for a brief time had been literally ‘the richest man in the world’, all stood together on that beautiful, sad, sunny day, all of us holding an American flag in our hands.
Over ten thousand people—married, single, gay, straight, lesbian—all stood sadly, respectfully, shoulder to shoulder on than brilliantly sunny morning, united in our sense of loss, our sadness at what had just happened, with an American flag held in each of our twenty thousand hands.
That day took place under that azure sky in September 2001. Here we all stood, over ten thousand men and women strong. A more diverse group you could scarcely imagine coming together in place, but on that day, there was no partisan rancor, there was no ideological or racial or religious division, or disrespect for anyone's sexual preference. In that moment we were united in our solemnity, and in the love and respect we all had the country that we all lived in together. Our ten thousand small American flags quietly fluttered in the light breeze; there was a sea of red, white and blue everywhere I looked.
The memory of seeing of all those people standing so quietly, so respectfully, unified in emotion and in purpose is a sight I will take with me all the rest of my life. I’ve never been so proud to be an American, and at the same moment never so sad to be one as I was on that day.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Mitt Romney: Corporate People Person
Mitt Romney is personally worth over $200 million, so it is no wonder he doesn't want to raise taxes on the rich. He's very happy to reduce Social Security and Medicare benefits to preserve the Bush rich-people's tax break given in 2003, which has been shown to be the largest single cause of the nation's deficit.
Romney recently stated in public that he wouldn't raise corporate taxes either, even though several multi-national corporations--GE being a notable example--in fact pay zero federal income tax. He justified his unwillingness to make corporations pay more taxes this to a hostile audience, by saying "Corporations are people, my friend," using the 'my friend' phrase in the gratutious, derisive, dismissive manner of John McCain.
Here are a couple of Democratic ads that take on Romney's "Corporations are people" statement head on. Check 'em out.
Romney recently stated in public that he wouldn't raise corporate taxes either, even though several multi-national corporations--GE being a notable example--in fact pay zero federal income tax. He justified his unwillingness to make corporations pay more taxes this to a hostile audience, by saying "Corporations are people, my friend," using the 'my friend' phrase in the gratutious, derisive, dismissive manner of John McCain.
Here are a couple of Democratic ads that take on Romney's "Corporations are people" statement head on. Check 'em out.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)