My retirement plan is pretty simple. I don’t plan to. I am fortunate to enjoy my work and see no reason to stop doing it in response to an arbitrary age boundary. Geography figures into that viewpoint. I grew up in the DC area, where the news was always dominated by local and national leaders who, regardless of what you may think about their individual politics, continued to put in grueling days well into their advanced years in service of the country.
There is vigorous debate about the motivations of those people and whether they should be continuing in their roles at such ages. I will not engage in any of that here. The impression they made on me was to show that there is no reason to stop as long as you are able and willing to add value and be a part of the solution.
I am at an age where I am increasingly asked how much longer I’ll go until I retire. I usually smile and say something like “when I’m done.” I leave unspoken my view that, as long as I am breathing, I am not done. My template in this regard is Jimmy Buffett. The year he passed, he toured until May, finished what would be his final album, did a couple of guest appearances at individual shows through the summer, entered hospice in August, and was gone by Labor Day. That is what “sticking the landing” looks like to me.
I am also at an age where I have buried both of my parents over the last fourteen months. They both lived to advanced ages and had full lives but, as I’ve been sorting through their things, I can’t help but think about what my own children will find when they sort through the things I leave behind.
Software and data are ephemeral. I expect that nothing I am working on today will exist in twenty years. I’m not a civil engineer or general contractor. There will be no bridge or building my kids will be able to drive by and say that I built. Unlike my father, I am not mechanically handy. There will be no tools that I once used, nor a tractor I once fixed up.
When your work product is impermanent, what’s left is the example you set as you move through the world. Maybe that’s true even when your work product is literally concrete. As I think about the influence geography has on every facet of life, and our unprecedented ability to automate and accelerate our understanding of its impacts, I can’t help but ask “Are we doing enough? Am I doing enough?”
Maybe “enough” is an unreachable, constantly-moving goal. I am fortunate to have the ability to apply this advanced and transient technology to meaningful problems. I want my children and theirs to see that I continue to show up and apply my abilities. I want them to know that it is important to me. As long as I can, I will. I’ll stop when I’m done.
Header image: Jstuby, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
