Moving On
I read with some sadness Ellen Goodman’s final column yesterday. She’s been an astute observer of our culture for as long as I can remember, and what she had to say about “retirement” was right on the money. I loved what she had to say about “what’s next”. She doesn’t know. She does know that [...]
I read with some sadness Ellen Goodman’s final column yesterday. She’s been an astute observer of our culture for as long as I can remember, and what she had to say about “retirement” was right on the money.
I loved what she had to say about “what’s next”. She doesn’t know. She does know that there’s another game for her to play, another chapter to be written. But as far as a regular column, it was, well, just time to move on. Interestingly, she apparently quotes her younger self, and talks about the Graceful Exit:
“There’s a trick to the Graceful Exit. It begins with the vision to recognize when a job, a life stage, a relationship is over — and to let go. It means leaving what’s over without denying its validity or its past importance in our lives. It involves a sense of future, a belief that every exit line is an entry, that we are moving on rather than out.”
She also points out that we “belong to a generation that has transformed our culture. We’ve been the change agents for civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights. Now, we find ourselves on the cutting edge of another huge social change. This time, it’s the longevity revolution. Ours is the first generation to cross the demarcation line of senior citizenship with actuarial tables on our side.”
As a generation, we are going to have a good deal of time on our hand. Like Ellen Goodman, it’s important to know when an exit was appropriate. But it’s critical to also know that there’s another game out there to be played. Too many of our generation seem to think that retirement will take care of itself. As she says of “retirement”, that “swoon of a word just won’t do.”
No, we’re not retiring, not leaving, not withdrawing. We are, as she says, “moving on.”
