All of us have engaged in work in our lives, whether it has earned us a salary or not.  Some of us have been fortunate enough to be engaged in work that felt like more than just a way to make money; some of us have actually felt like our work was a calling.  A calling is an inner sense guiding you in a specific direction with such strength that it overshadows other choices.  When someone feels a calling to be a comedian, it may not matter that others offer cautions about how difficult it is to earn a living in that line of work.  Sometimes callings are associated with a service associated with improving the lives of others, like being a teacher, a nurse, etc.  Sometimes a calling Is driven by a long-standing interest or passion, like being a marine biologist, an electrician, a chef, etc.

Maybe your calling was to raise children.  Perhaps as the children aged and grew more independent you took on part-time work or engaged in volunteer activities that you enjoyed.  We all need to feel like we’re contributing to the lives of others In some way.  I’m grateful for all of the services available to me in my local community.  Well-stocked grocery stores nearby are a real convenience.  Local retail stores that support our daily lives – hardware stores, garden centers, cleaners, post offices, etc. – provide a valued service to others.

Revisiting Erik Erikson’s Stages of Adult Development in my blog about the Nautilus identifies a significant portion of our lives as engaging in productive activities.  Much of our lives have involved getting up most if not every day of the week prepared to engage in some form of work as it is broadly defined.

It’s no wonder then as people begin to contemplate “retirement” and the outdated assumptions that currently cloud its possibilities, they may feel even if they don’t acknowledge those feelings some sense of trepidation about what initially feels like open, unstructured space.  I recently had a conversation with a customer service agent in a local bank who is retiring after 40 years working for the same institution.  I asked her how she was doing and she said she was looking forward to more personal time but she was a little nervous about not having the day-to-day structure of coming to work.

When I was preparing to leave my last full-time job, the first thing people frequently said to me was, “Oh, are you retiring?”  I found it an irksome question.  I think we as a society are stuck on a mental image of life as a series of linear, compartmentalized segments.  Such a limited vision of life may have been more apropos in the past; people completed their education and either entered the workforce after high school or college, got married, raised children, worked most of their adult lives, and retired around the age of 65.  Lifespans were shorter which may have lessened the need to think of how one might spend one’s time once more personal time was available.  I think in previous times there was a sense that after working for 40 years, one was entitled to just relax and sit around.  That may have worked if one was only anticipating living for another 5-6 years, but it is an outdated concept at this point in time when we have been gifted with longer life spans.

If you count what I do currently and what I do as a volunteer, I am working close to full-time.  But here’s the difference from what I did in more traditional full-time jobs.  Much of the work I do now can be done from my home office.  I have more time because I don’t spend time commuting, and I have the flexibility to work when I want to.  What matters is that I get the work done in a timely manner.  So in a given week, if it is supposed to rain Saturday – Monday, I may work on those days and then play and do other things on Tuesday – Friday.  Having flexibility really takes the edge off of feeling locked into a routine.  This wonderful flexibility allows me to incorporate other activities into my day as well.  I can get up early, work for several hours, break for a yoga class or lunch with a friend, and return to my work later in the day.

I have taken a pretty assertive stand on responding to people who continually describe me as retired.  I call them out on the use of that term, and instead I tell them that I have simply “reshuffled” how I work and manage the other activities in my life.  My advice is don’t let others pigeon-hole you and your life.  It is going to take our youth-worshipping culture some time to accept the wide-ranging opportunities that exist for continued growing, contributing, and enjoying life as one moves through life’s phases.

I have a strong bias that we should continue to engage in work in some fashion to the degree that we are able throughout our entire life span.  Most of us will have to work in some capacity to acquire the financial resources to fit our life’s aspirations and to sustain us in our later years.  During these years of building our financial stability, we will most likely have to put up with behaviors and things we don’t like in our places of work, but once we have reached a point of financial independence, we can then seek out the kind of work and/or environment that calls us and provides with more control over the environments in which we choose to work.

So why do I feel so strongly about why we should continue to include “work” in our lives even when we may no longer need the financial benefits of working?  I think the answer to this question is pretty simple:  We all need to experience activities that enable us to feel good about ourselves. We all want to feel like we are needed, that we’re making a difference even if in our minds it is a small one.  We need to test our competencies, to continue to learn and grow.

In addition to these very basic, primal needs, we also experience side benefits from working.  Typically most work experiences involve some level of contact with others.  Even though our contact with others may be focused primarily on business interactions, those interactions provide us with social contacts.  We have the opportunity to converse and be present with others.

Work responsibilities also add some structure in our lives.  What we’re actually aiming for in a  “reshuffled” life style is to have more personal time and the opportunity to use our time to pursue other interests and passions.  But this aspiration isn’t synonymous with removing work from our lives.  It is our choice how we weave the tapestry of our lives as we reshuffle our options.

Each of our tapestries is unique, and the colors, texture, and predominant images will change over time.  One of things I notice as I’m aging is that we get more interesting as we age.  We also have more time to share our narratives, the stories of our lives.  A MUST for those of us who want to enrich our tapestries is to make time to engage others who are actively practicing the Art of Reshuffling in their own lives.  What rich resources for us to learn from!

Take a moment each day to remind yourself that you have been given a great gift to design how you choose to spend your time.  ENJOY!