Getting Old and Work - 3

Looking back on our last 2 posts on getting old and work, we left off with a stab at retirement - which for most, but not all, is a kind of "post-work" state. While we've posted on retirement recently, we'll focus on it from the point of view of getting old and work today.

Are we confusing matters here? No. What we're driving at is those who retire from their life-long work that pays money and switch to work that doesn't necessarily pay anything. Sure, some retire from their "regular" full-time jobs and take on reduced or part-time work for money. That's not our focus here. We're talking about those to no longer work for pay but continue with some form of work.

A good example of this that I've come across recently is boomers (older folks) who take up an endeavor that was and remained dear to their hearts during their years of working for pay. Two specific instances we'll consider is writing (novels, short stories, etc.) and composing (songs and other forms of music). These were likely set aside due to the necessity of making money. They were, in a sense, first loves that had to be abandoned for practical reasons. But with retirement from working for money, those first loves beckon.

Personal experience will serve as a source for what follows. First, writing.

A business executive hung up his spurs after a successful (by the world's measure) and lucrative (by any measure) career. I knew this guy but never knew that his first efforts as he exited college were at writing. (I think screen plays were one area way back.) So now that he's no longer needing to get up super-early and commute to an office, the door was opened to re-visit that first love. And so he did. 

From conversations, we learned that (no surprise) he had to establish a new regimen in order to actively pursue his aspiration to write a novel. This gets back to our recent discussions of creativity and craftsmanship that demonstrated the importance of carving out a block of time for disciplined pursuit, in this case, writing a novel. In addition, our fellow connected with writers groups for encouragement as well as technical assistance. He was quite serious, so he even hired an coach and, I think, a professional editor as he finished his first draft. It was impressive to learn of his determination and persistence in completing his first effort and getting it published (self-published as it turned out - a common way theses days). 

This was work, just as much as his business career was work. 

The genre wasn't one of my favorites, but I bought and read the book and really enjoyed it! The guy had skill and applied it to an interesting plot. To show how skilled he is, the book concerned AI - an area which at the time I knew little. His book opened my eyes to what was going on, and indeed, some of what he wrote about was prescient.. He followed up with two more novels, basically a trilogy that followed main characters and the original plot.

It wasn't too long after reading the trilogy that the current AI mania exploded. The books did help me to understand AI better. And it was just in time as my own profession became soaked with AI - or at least with the promotion of it. All this has helped in picking and choosing what to consider, and what to ignore. 

But let's not digress too much here. To get back to our original theme of getting old and work, here is a good example of someone who really felt that he had enough of the stress and strain of meeting high expectations of his business career, but had plenty of energy and desire to put forth the physical and mental exertions of an author. 

He got old but continued to work. Not that he doesn't carve out time for his love of golf, travel and other non-work activities - more so than during his business career. But the work of writing retained its primacy of place - the only way he could have produced that trilogy.

More next time...