Today was one of those reflective days. We had a retirement of a long-term executive. Speeches, cake, and seeing lots of people turn up to honor the retiree. If you think about it, retirement is kind of a happier version of an obituary.
The person is leaving the work world. You may see them, but they won’t really be part of it. Kind of someone who has passed on to (hopefully) better things but may still turn up, as if haunting (in a good way) those left behind. Much like the funeral eulogy, the speeches are all about the good they’ve done and the future moving on without them.
Most retirements are smaller. At the large company I work at, people have a choice. Who do they want to invite to their retirement party? Do they want a party at all? Do they want celebratory speeches or just food and a chance to talk to people–and say goodbyes? We also celebrate work anniversaries every five years.
There’s something about those markers of time that makes you (or me, at least), think about the passage of time, what has been accomplished, what has changed. Birthdays do that for some people. We’ll often have a milestone birthday, which might be different for different people. Maybe it’s 40 or 45 or 50 or some random age… where you think about how the world is different because of you, what you’ve accomplished, or what you’ve not accomplished.
You set a direction for where you’re going.
Retirement is that kind of occasion. So are those other marker-days.
What’s one of your marker days, and what did you decide to do on that day?