Some Thoughts on Work

You'd think that in retirement, all thoughts of "work" would be gone... But they're not!

During my working years, I often wondered whether I had found my vocation or "calling." As a teacher - I found limited opportunity for creativity. The curriculum controlled much of what was done in the classroom. Each cycle of educational "reforms" imposed its own regimen. So I looked forward to retirement, to the freedom of spending my time any way I wanted.

Now that I'm retired, I'm always looking for interesting and meaningful things to do, activities that satisfy my desire for creativity, and also help those around me.

Thankfully, I also discovered Benedictine thought, which values work and creativity.

I recently started reading a book entitled Friend of the Soul: A Benedictine Spirituality of Work, which talks of work as a "calling."We are "called" by our interests and talents.

Here are a few of the author's comments that struck a chord, as I look back on my working days and now on my life in retirement...

• Jobs that ask too little of us are as dehumanizing as jobs that ask too much. Exhaustion and boredom at work are not opposites, but are different ways of signaling that the human being is undervalued on the job... 
• Each of us has a particular 'work' that only we can do... we dare not allow our work or the work of our employees to be trivialized, for each is meant to contribute to the ongoing work of creation.
• As created human beings, we are made for purposeful activity.

I remember one of my friends telling me how her father had dreaded retirement. When he reached mandatory retirement age and was forced to retire at age 65, he told his family: Now my life is over.

His wife encouraged him to think about spending winters in Florida. But on their first trip south, he had a heart attack and died...

We all need to feel our lives are meaningful... even in retirement!