Purpose heh? (Part one of two)

Post-retirement is one of the major categories that any demographer would use to describe the chapters of my story currently being written. I consider myself still quite young in navigating the philosophical byways of these waters. It's been just over 2 years with the first 18 months of that time consisting of the shock and awe of finally breaking the tape of arriving at the end of the endless employment contests.  The more euphoric aspects initially present have faded. Hoping for a long road ahead, I find myself hunkering down and looking for the right mental/spiritual framework from which to proceed.

It is interesting to see all the many offers of advice when one does a search on 'finding purpose in retirement'. It's evident that it is of much interest and not hard to imagine that many must struggle with it in order to generate the volume of advice the internet offers. But what I am beginning to  wonder is that perhaps the whole purposefulness thing need not really be all that profound or complicated. Let's explore:

Purposefulness seems like it crops up as a potentially troublesome category more after one retires....not so much before.  And that my friends is what we in the business like to call a 'major clue'!  For if finding purpose is not as troublesome before retirement as it is after retiring we know what to focus on.  Mainly, what does retiring do in one's life to make 'purpose' a subject that so many are obviously searching on?

Well, dumbing it down to pure simplicity, all that has really changed in retirement is the cessation of "working for a living", of "career", of being a "working stiff".  And that says a lot.  If purpose was not such a big deal while we were working but now, after retirement, it becomes the subject of many people's Google searches, simple logic provides what to me seems somewhat amazing.  While we were working our sense of purpose at least seemed to be more or less fulfilled  from our working, from what we did for a living, what we did to support ourselves and our loved ones. While working, our life's purpose was not an itch looking to be scratched. But after we stop working suddenly we are all itchy? What's going on guys? (As my little grandson Gage would say.)

The honest truth is that our working seems to provide an easy, "low-hanging" kind of answer to our need for having purpose.  But really....should it?  Is not our life about much more than how we make our living?  I submit that the easy answer to this is "Yes, but it is often enough to lull us into feeling purpose-filled". I honestly have no recollection of hearing others lamenting about their lives lacking purpose when they were actively pursuing their Monday-Friday employment.  Maybe lamenting about the stress-filled treadmill of life but not their lack of a sense of purpose.  What up? What are the dynamics at work here?

Can't help but believe that the whole package of working for a living gives one a false illusion of purposefulness. The very act of going to bed, getting up, getting ready, driving through traffic and weather to get to work, going through the twists and turns of 8-10 hours of whatever someone is paying us to do, gritting our teeth at the antics of management, maneuvering through the social aspects of our workmates, looking forward to the weekend, going home and driving through the traffic and weather to return to our castles only to rinse and repeat five days a week seems to provide what suffices for a sense of purpose. Wow! Should it? I say neh, neh but it seems to work for most of us....

And now for a daring feat of logic. It stands to reason that if our working provided a false sense of purpose, our apparent loss of purpose when we stop working might just be an illusion as well.  Of course there is purpose in working but not so much that it deserves to be seen as the source of all purpose in our life. We work to provide and I am assuming that there is some means of provision after we stop working (or we wouldn't stop because we couldn't).  Regardless, the question remains: why does finding one's purpose often crop up as an issue after retiring?

Here is what I think.  The crazy busyness of life when working masks what really constitutes purpose. Being busy and "rowing the boat" (as PJ would say) seem to answer the question...but they really don't. Once we stop working we gain something that has been in short supply for so many years....time!  Time and the need to decide on how best to fill this time.  Not a category with which we have had much practice or experience.

So if all that has really changed after retiring is that it no longer takes 40 hours/week to make the nut, that our provision for life comes from another source which doesn't eat up much of the clock, we are finally free to see things for what they are.Scripture tells us believers that our purpose is to live "for the praise of his glory." To be image bearers of Christ, to embrace the cross, die to the selfish nature we have and surrender ourselves to the transforming work of Christ that we may better image bearers.

Our life's spiritual purpose has been meant for us from when we were first born, throughout each of our birthdays, throughout our working careers....it hasn't changed from day one! But with retirement, what does change is that the major distraction/mask of work/career ceases. We are left with an unobstructed opportunity to reassess our place on the map of life.  For me, the focus of my priorities seems quite clear.....and daunting.  Let's explore in part 2 of this effort.......