Repurposed
I have been thinking about retirement lately. Let me be clear: I have not been thinking about retiring. I have been thinking about the word “retirement.”
A little over two years ago, I resigned from a full-time city manager position I had held for thirteen years to pursue opportunities in consulting and interim management. I took great pains at the time to let people know I would continue to work. “I’m not retiring,” I would say. “I’m quitting.”
To retire is to withdraw. When we talk about retirement in the context of leaving employment, we imagine that people are withdrawing from work to pursue a life of leisure. This is certainly true of some people. It is not true of me, however, or many others I know who have “retired.” Some of us are working at different kinds of careers. Others are actively involved in volunteer activities in their communities.
When people asked me about my plans after I left regular employment, I tried to explain that I would be pursuing a portfolio life. Part of my time would be devoted to working for pay and part of my time would be volunteering with various organizations. I would do some writing. I would serve on nonprofit boards. I would be busy doing things I enjoyed and was good at.
That explanation didn’t stick with people. They looked at the fact that I had chosen to leave behind a 40-year career as a local government manager, combined that with the knowledge that I was eligible for Social Security and Medicare, and concluded that I had retired. People like to have words available that allow them to convert difficult, complex ideas into simple concepts. Explaining the portfolio life was not what they were looking for.
Last week, I hit on the solution to this dilemma. I needed a simple way to describe what I was doing that would differentiate that life from one of retirement. Here is what I should have been saying all along when people asked how I was enjoying retirement:
I’m not retired. I’m repurposed.
To repurpose is to take something that has one use and apply it to a new, different use. That is what I have done with my life. I had been a city manager. Now, I consult and volunteer. What I do not do is engage in lots of leisure activities. I work.
For some, “work” is a four-letter word. (In truth, it is for all English speakers, but you know what I mean.) This is our fault because we have come to associate work with something we would rather not do.
Humans are designed to conserve energy. It is a strategy that served hunter-gathers well from the standpoint of survival. We have carried that inclination with us into a very different era, one that is characterized by all sorts of ways in which we avoid exerting ourselves. Consequently, we must force ourselves to get the same exercise that our ancestors got just by searching for and growing their own food.
There is a second factor that causes us to favor not working over working. Since the industrial revolution, much work has been unfulfilling drudgery at best and downright dangerous at worst. The advent of social programs that encouraged older people to leave the workforce was seen as a good thing. For many it was and for some, particularly those engaged in grueling manual labor, it still is.
Work need not have a pejorative sense. The Collins English Dictionary defines the term as “physical or mental activity exerted to do or make something” or “purposeful activity.” This is what I mean when I use the term “work.” I could say “ I am engaged in purposeful activity” when describing how I spent my days, but that is a clumsy phrase to use in everyday conversation. It’s easier to say, “I work.”
When thinking about our attitudes about work, the concept of work-life balance comes up. What this concept conveys is that work tends to bleed into one’s personal life if we let it and that this is a bad thing. It is without doubt the case that I should not be so devoted to my work that I neglect my obligations to my family and friends. The term arises from a false dichotomy, however, in which my personal life – the things I do when I’m not working for others – is the only source of true and lasting joy in my life.
For knowledge workers like me, however, work offers a type of joy that most leisure does not. It is intellectually challenging and stimulating. The work I favor, whether for pay or not, also provides an opportunity for public service. It is my small contribution to making the world a better place.
Why would I want to give that up? I can’t think of a reason, which is why I am not retired. I’m repurposed. There is more I want to do with the years while I can still work. I just want to do it in ways in which I have more control over where, when, and how I work.
I carry two different business cards with me to hand out to people. One is for the consulting business that I started. I hand it out to people who might be interested in paying me for my services.
The second business card is what I use for the unpaid work I do. This includes serving at the district level in Rotary, as a Senior Advisor for the International City/County Management Association, and as a nonprofit board member. On that business card, there is no title listed for me. Instead, there is a list of descriptors intended to capture the range of things that I do when I’m not working for pay: adviser, booster, facilitator, thinker, learner, teacher, writer, worker, and volunteer.
My life today is not easily summarized in an elevator speech. It would take time to tell you about the kinds of work I do. Even when I am engaged as an interim city manager, that is not the only thing that occupies my time and mind. I write Field Notes. I take calls from city managers seeking my advice. I consult with other clients. I tend to chores around the house. I participate in Rotary. I attend meetings of nonprofit organizations. I complete the myriad tasks necessary to running a business. I present at conferences.
To be fair, I did many of these same things before I left my full-time job. What makes my life different is the ability to choose how, and for whom, I am working. I have two questions that I ask myself when making such choices: How can I help? What will I learn? The ability to choose on which purposeful activity I will spend my time in response to these two questions is the essence of the repurposed life.
Photo by Filip Rankovic Grobgaard: https://www.pexels.com/photo/liquor-bottle-with-nozzle-spray-12201169/