Projections

Being the self-absorbed creatures too many of us are, another person's important event becomes yet another opportunity to think about ourselves. Weddings, funerals, Little League games, and a million other things that remind us of what was, what might have been, and what may be.

One of the self-reflective observed occasions that changes slowly over half a lifetime is the retirement "party." What an incredibly dull and meaningless subject for you, I suspect. Everyone keeps telling you that when you start your career you should, after nest-egging your "rainy-day" money, immediately start saving for your retirement. Who does that in their twenties? So when you go to your first retirement "party," it will seem an alien occasion for you. You will be an observer of old folks you barely know, and probably be a bit cavalier and scarely make any connection to what is a monumental change for that not-as-old-as-you-think old-timer. Why should you kick in twenty bucks and waste an hour or two? As you go to more retirement occasions, you may think of the retirement's impact on the organization and perhaps on your place in the company, and maybe begin to wonder what will happen to the acquaintance who is retiring. Eventually, these occasions do not seem so abstract as you come to know those that retire a little better, and the dim light of the future has brightened to the point that you begin to contemplate what retirement means for you. Soon thereafter you talk in detail with those about to retire, examining their perspectives and plans. They tell you that they have mixed feelings about retirement, but "it's time." Retirement parties at some point probably become like dress rehearsals, and you wonder when it will be time. And then it is.

I'm not going to tell you to start planning for retirement because you won't, nor will shrill, impassioned carpe diem appeals have any impact on you immortal undergraduates. Rather, perhaps you might contemplate the phases of life, and how the only life you've known, the student phase, will soon end, and another begin. And, if the hand you are dealt is a good one, there will be many phases to come.

By the way, when you come to see life as phases, you may be impressed by the linear inevitabilty towards finality. School, job, wife, house, kids, better job and house, empty house, retirement, death. There will be some bumps along the way, but can you break out of the lemming's march? Don't do one of the steps in the sequence and live forever. Which one should you forgo to cheat the Reaper?