Purpose

Back in the day when the clock rang at 6 am and both Cindy Lou and I groaned about getting up in the winter dark for showers, lunch making, and heading off to school at an ungodly hour, life had plenty of purpose.  We’d show up at our buildings with smiles on our faces to work with 100+ young people each every day, trying our best to lead them to writing, thinking, and academic success.

Following our retirement, though, purpose has been a bit more difficult to discern. 

For me, I must say, the transition was not too hard.  I’m a morning person who likes to get up when the sun does (well, not at 5 am in the summer!) to get my day going.  It usually begins with a glass of orange juice or chocolate milk and thirty minutes of personal time with the Dayton Daily News, sitting next to our lovely dining room windows, reading and watching the Natural world getting going for another day.  Pretty soon it’s off to my computer for another news update, catching up with email, and maybe getting going on a new blog entry or continued work on other writing.  Generally speaking, I don’t have trouble finding stuff to do.  

For Cindy Lou it’s been a bit more difficult.  She’s one of those folks who is a slow daily starter, but then by evening she might get a burst of energy and stick with a project until 3 am.  The other night she unpacked and photographed the entire collection of demitasse cups and saucers left to her by her mother.  Must be at least thirty sets, I’d say.  It’s easy to understand, then, why she likes to sleep late into the morning.  Besides, I am advised, her vivid dreaming is just kicking in about dawn and heavens, does she love getting involved in those and so many other fictional narratives. 

I’ve heard plenty of folks say that they don’t look forward to retirement because they are afraid they’ll be bored.  A month or so of sleeping late and they won’t know what to do with themselves.  I think some are concerned, too, that hanging out all day in the same space as their spouse will get on everybody’s nerves before too long.  And I’m sure that can happen. 

  

I offer these situations, including the lovely Cindy Lou’s, as case studies of those who somehow struggle with what to do with unassigned time.  Employment undoubtedly gives our day purpose.  No daily preassigned job equals a different personal equation. 

I don’t know that I have a definitive solution to this conundrum facing so many of us Baby Boomers these days.  Maybe what I have to say is specific to those morning types who love to engage with a new day, just because.  If one is not made up that way, I suspect it could be a perpetual challenge for later years. 

For me, though, it seems to resolve around the concept of zen.  Not zen meditation so much, though I’ve tried that unsuccessfully a handful of times.  For me it has more to do with finding some good thing to do today because it calls out for attention.  

Wikipedia says zen used as an adjective means ‘extremely relaxed and collected.‘  I suppose when one relaxes and considers the day, a zen purpose emerges.  Cindy Lou might use the term gestalt, since that is so big in her professional and personal background.  Wikipedia defines gestalt as ‘a whole, unified concept or pattern which is other than the sum of its parts.’  I like to think of it as being grounded in the moment.  

In any case, as a member of the working class, purpose might not be hard to define.  Answer the bell, do your work, and enjoy Reds games on summer evenings.  

But for those who struggle with unassigned days, I think taking time daily to stop and quietly listen for the voice or spirit or whatever the entity -- or non-entity -- can offer the insight needed to lead us into good work that the world needs, whether it’s holding babies at Children’s Medical Center or raising tomatoes in the front yard.  Some purpose surely has broader and deeper ramifications, but all daily purpose works toward the good of the one, which overall is beneficial for the whole community.  

As solitary as we might be, we’re all in this together.  Finding personal purpose and working on it makes the world in which we all live a better place and from what I can tell, is much better for one’s health.  

Today’s elder idea:  Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness.  It is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose. 

Helen Keller

image:  Scavenged from Google search at purpose.edelman.com