T Minus Four
Jan. 17th, 2022 08:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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Federal holiday to begin the last week of employment. So I got that going for me.
So this week is going to be going into work and watching folks work on figuring out exactly what the fuck it is that I do. I am not training the folks taking my place, that is the job (one that has never, ever been done) of my supervisors. But since they seem to think that actually understanding what their employees do is secondary to spending time preparing reports to enhance their sadly limited chances of promotion and attending meetings where they learn the part line to parrot, I feel that the poor sad sack who will be inserted to the position will have to find his own way like I did.
Today is a holiday, so I need to do little or nothing. I think that I will ponder my daily schedule for the future. I need to implement some things so that I can prepare for the long haul of day-to-day and husband my remaining resources. I am thinking that I will spend time writing every day like I do now, but I also think that the homely tasks of becoming more autonomous (a la Kant) will need to be inserted into the mix.
RETIREMENT GOALS AND SCHEDULES
Date: 2022-01-17 07:26 pm (UTC)Maybe you have simply gotten too old to play this role - and not because you physically cannot do it any longer, but because you might physically hurt somebody if you do it any longer.
This is where retirement gets written into the script, except with a tragedy of some sort. So, what about retirement goals? Now that you have almost complete freedom, you can have YOUR OWN GOALS!
Needless to say, this puts enormous pressure on you to become goal-oriented in a new and foreign way that makes many people go mad after they retire because they cannot handle freedom itself. Simply put, having the freedom to do whatever they want, drives some people to madness.
There would seem to be little mystery in such a madness. Age 5-21: school with firm schedule and step-by-step goals. Age 21-67: work with job and career goals and every week scheduled (not counting military time which can be added for effect). Age 68-69: retirement slow down adjustment period. Age 70-72: become disappointed in how little is being achieved and go mad.
Goals are always suggestions from outside. This is not saying much because the same can be said about anything; but why should a retired 70-year-old feel a need to set themselves a goal? Why should a retired 70-year-old feel a need to set themselves a schedule?
What is the worst that can happen? This: you do not really feel like doing something, so you just sit on the couch and do not move until you die.
Some people might think it a shame, but if ever there was a case where somebody died doing what they wanted to be doing, this would have to be it!
This sympathetic phrase about somebody dying while doing what they loved never applies as well. Somebody who dies climbing a mountain did not want to fall into a crevice.
Nobody said that freedom has anything to do with progress of any sort.
The way to avoid going mad, is to accept the truth, which is that you are your own boss from here on out. As a boss, you define the goals, and you demand nothing short of excellence from yourself in all areas of life. You accept nothing of yourself other than "exceeded expectations". Period. Never in your life has more been expected of you, and the key to success is having the proper understanding of a goal.
The way to achieve all your goals in life, is to have a solid definition of a goal - not a refined definition of what you want to accomplish, but a definition of what a goal itself is, and how it is accomplished.
A goal is accomplished when you do something that you were not hoping to avoid.
This is the only acceptable definition of a goal; any other definition is like a false god. Goals of the false type appease others.
The same idea applies to schedules. A schedule is the sequence of whatever you do as you accomplish all your goals in life one by one every day.
If anybody suggests that your goals and schedules are responsible for a notable lack of progress, then they are applying some reference other than the sit on the couch plan. In other words, their thinking is messed up and they are suggesting different goals for you.