My Second Retirement

It’s only now – in my second “retirement” – that I am actually stepping back, and that is taking much more getting used to than I’d expected. This is a real shift.

My old sociology teacher, Alan Blum, wrote an article years ago about social problems. I was a social worker getting a doctorate in sociology, so this was a paper that spoke to me. “What is a social problem?” Alan asked. He answered that a social problem was something that somebody had better do something about. That was me – as a social worker and later as a Zen Peacemaker – the person who would do something about whatever it was that needed doing about.

And now it’s not me. I’m not the person who going to do the doing. I’m retired. How do I feel about that? Guilty. Bernie always said that Zen teachers don’t retire, but I’m a retired Zen teacher. I’m a retired peacemaker. That seems to be my koan. And it ain’t an easy one. Not for me anyway.

What does it mean to be retired? I’m thinking about the word. Twenty-five years ago, I took an early retirement option. Now I retire early. I’m usually asleep by about 10:30. Now, that’s early retirement. I’m stepping back. I’m happy to attend a meeting, if invited, to brainstorm what might be done about a problem, but I’m not taking on the work. I’m tired. Sometimes, I nap in the afternoon, tired again even after a good night’s sleep.  That’s retired.

I need to pace myself. Even three years ago, when I “retired” for the second time, when I really got into walking, I was averaging over 10,000 steps a day. These days, 10,000 steps is a lot. And I’m walking more slowly. My heroes on the boardwalk are not the athletes zooming by but the old guys plodding, one-foot-other-foot, as they push their walkers.

I am respecting my body, even as I stay in motion, and I feel guilty: shouldn’t I be doing more? I know there’s a quick way to alleviate the guilt: Push myself to do something about some social problem. Stop leaving the problems to the younger people. Why should the young people have to deal with our environmental mess? On and on, it goes.

So, what do I do with my koan? I sit with it. I feel the frustration and the guilt of not being the same person I was twenty years ago or five or even yesterday. And I feel the joy of not being that same person either. It’s wonderful to have this new experience. I don’t even want the guilt to go away. The guilt is part of appreciating this new experience, this retirement.

My mother used to say, “You get old or you die.” I will get to the dying soon enough, although I’m in no hurry. I think about that old Chinese Zen teacher, Chao Chou, one of my heroes, who taught until he was 120. I like being an old teacher. Retired doesn’t mean “stopped teaching.” It means walking slower, going to bed earlier, leaving some things to the younger people, and teaching. And I love it. And I feel guilty. A hell of koan.