“I always rolled sevens,” Steve smiled with shy humility. “I was always lucky where I landed, no matter the turn of the wheel.” Steve, now 62, was a corporate executive and very successful in his career. He retired two years ago and suddenly finds himself disoriented, confused. “I can’t tell if my life is what it should be, or even if I’m happy,” he complains. “There’s no measure or feedback in retirement.” Part of him enjoys the time to be. Part of him doesn’t.
“It was always ‘Do and then you’ll know yourself’,” he said. “Accomplish something first, my father always told me, and that will be your identity, how others will know you; how you will know you. I feel lost now, about who I am. There’s no business card to hand someone. I don’t have an identity.”
Steve’s plight isn’t unique in the corporate world. The outer journey of accomplishing, producing, providing, supersedes the inner journey of self-reflection, value clarification, spiritual awareness. The inner journey has to wait until there’s time, until goals are accomplished, until financial responsibilities are met. By then, it takes more than time on one’s hands to know how to step on the path of self-awareness and inner growth. There’s no executive plan.
“I always told those who worked for me, ‘Don’t confuse your job with your life’, and now I think I did just that. I know it sounds strange,” Steve confessed, “but I’ve had a hard time, with retirement, not being important to anyone.” Without a recognized position or role with which to project himself, Steve doesn’t know why others should care about him, what he wants from his relationships, how he wants to fill his open schedule, whether or not he likes his wife.
After convincing Steve he is right where he needs to be – dealing with his present moment – we began the slow excavation of his person. Steve has to build an inner man from the inside out, to create a person out of the fragments he does know about Steve-the-human-being. What is Steve passionate about? Does he have any hobbies? Is he a man who allows others close to him or does he maintain emotional distance?
Plato was right – Know yourself (first). Be. Then you’ll know what you want to do. Your doing will flow out of your being, your passion. If you’re used to having to make only the big decisions – which stock to buy, what company to sell – start paying attention to the small ones – Do I want pizza or hamburger tonight? Do I want to take a walk with my spouse after dinner or read a book? How do I want to spend time with my grown children? It’s about becoming conscious.
It’s the outer and then, if the inclination is there, the inner journey for most corporate workers in our culture; a move “from success to substance,” from doing what you must do, to doing what you were really born to do – become a fully developed human being.
The trick is learning how to do this before retirement, creating the kind of passion for life and interests while you are in the full bloom of energy, to have a life to enjoy and to which to redirect your focus. It’s keeping one eye on the invisible world while you’re fully invested in the visible world. So the invisible world of soul and aliveness trying to connect up in you won’t be such a dilemma when retirement offers the time to enjoy this part of the personality.
Steve’s emotional well-being, his self-esteem, was tainted at an early age by his father’s insistence he wouldn’t feel good about himself until he successfully accomplished something – the “accomplish something first and that will be your identity” thing. If Steve felt cherished and enough just as he was, as a child, he could have chosen a life work, a career, out of his giftedness and not out of a sense of obligation, or survival, or the need to prove his worthiness.
The opportunity to develop our unique gifts and interests has be to recognized as important in our childhood in order for us to keep this vital connection with ourselves alive and well throughout our business career. Then, retirement will be welcomed as a natural blessing after a long and fulfilling adventure of self-discovery and self-expression, a time to enjoy all the things we love about ourselves but never had the time to fully set free.