Chatting About Leah's Ideas

TRANSCRIPT:

One of the first things we talked about was communication in relationships and something Leah said really hit home – she said a lot of people have trouble getting along with others in their various relationships, and something that we all should keep in mind is that in all our relationships, WE are the common denominator! So, if I’m struggling to get along with my reading club friends and then I go off to the Legion and join my euchre-playing friends and I have disagreements with them too, it might be a good idea for me to step back for a moment and figure out what I’m doing in these relationships. Since I’m the one that’s having the issues in all of them, maybe I need to do something different.

We went on to discuss the difficulty that many people have with figuring out who they are after they retire. We truly spend all our life identifying with what we do. From the time you’re about 4 years old, people are asking “What do you want to be when you grow up?” and we’re searching our minds and looking outward as well, trying to pick the “right” character, the one that will make our dreams become reality. And as we get older, the first thing we’re asked when we meet someone (and the first thing WE ask) is “So, what do you do?” That’s where this whole identity issue after retirement comes from, right?

The important thing to learn and to really believe is that you don’t HAVE to do anything once you retire. Just being YOU is enough! And if you volunteer locally, if you mentor students at a local school, if you knit socks and mittens for care packages... those are all wonderful things that you do because you’re YOU.

One of the most important points Leah made was around this aspect – social standing has been an issue forever – when you say you’re a lawyer and the person beside you says she’s a stay-at-home Mom, there’s no denying the difference in the conversations and actions of the people around you. If you’re lucky, it’s a subtle thing, but often it’s quite obvious and we perpetuate it ourselves when we worry about trying to identify ourselves in those terms. As a retiree, it’s really important to remember – no, not just remember, but ACCEPT, that everything you’ve learned over the course of your life has made you who you are. It’s not just the job that you did or the profession you were part of. For your working life, you were IN service to the company or organization and the people that made up that select group. Now that you’re retired, you get to be OF service to society in general. Your skills, training and experience didn’t just evaporate because you aren’t employed by the company any longer.

So now it’s time to identify the skill set you’ve got. Remember that your skill set goes beyond what your job description said. Do you think everyone starting out in your field has the experience and skills that you possess? They absolutely don’t! So here’s a chance for you to be OF service... you could offer your assistance to new employees through a mentorship course/program. Or maybe you could start a blog about whatever it is you’ve done through your life, sharing the wisdom you’ve developed and the experiences you’ve had.

When Leah mentioned this idea – a blog or a YouTube channel – I’ll admit I got a little shiver of nervousness. Putting myself out there and trying to tell people about something? Yikes! That takes a lot of courage, right? That’s what I thought, but you know what? It really doesn’t take much courage at all...three or four seconds of insane courage is all it takes to do anything outside your comfort zone. One of the examples we discussed was the idea that if you were a doctor, you could give value to others by something as simple as telling people how to prepare for a visit to their general practitioner. These days, everyone is so overworked and short on time, having a patient come into the doctor’s office prepared for the visit would be a godse