Have you ever had one of those days when seemingly disparate thought streams keep swirling around in your head?
Like you, I’ve been trying to make sense of national and world affairs, feeling the unending waves of change and tragedy. Also occupying my mind these days is the unfolding of a new horizon of my work, which is focused on helping professionals who are contemplating leaving corporate life and those who have recently retired find meaning and purpose in this current stage of life.
To distract myself from all of this mental busyness, I listened to a favorite podcast while running errands early one morning. A guest was recounting a story of a decision a man made more than five decades prior to volunteer one hour of his time each week for a cause that deeply affected him. Through that one hour of pro bono legal work, the guest’s father was able to provide an upbringing for his children that he would not have been able to if it weren’t for that lawyer’s donated time. And one of those children, the man who was telling the story, dedicated his life to public service and currently serves as a U.S. senator.
That’s when all of my mental chatter converged and I realized that retirement is a verb.
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