If I’d been out till quarter to three
Would you lock the door,
Will you still need me, will you still feed me,
When I’m sixty-four?
I was 65 last Sunday and still sometimes go out till quarter to three. But I carry a key.
I am now officially “past-it” and this is wonderful. Nothing of earth-shattering significance is any longer expected of me. Anything I can manage to do now makes me an over-achiever.
People ask whether I have “retired” and here in Sweden I am asked if I am a “pensioner”, but I never know how to reply correctly. A “pensioner” is used here as a kind of a label which I find less than flattering. While I have activated some “pensions” as sources of income, I take on consultancy assignments and lecture and write and that also generates some income. So, yes I have stopped being an “employee” but no – I have not retired from life – yet!. I don’t mind if strangers offer me a seat in crowded places! I don’t mind being called “uncle” when I am visiting India but I’m still getting used to being addressed as “the old man” or as “Grandfather”. I am expected to be opinionated – which I was anyway. My natural arrogance is less offensive or perhaps I have mellowed and have lost some of my cutting edge. I am not dishevelled but I don’t worry much about how I look any more or if my colour combinations are bizarre. I only need to – or wish to – wear a tie once or twice a month. I can even get away with wearing my old shoe-string ties from the 60’s or broad flowered ties from the 70’s. If I could have gotten into some of my old bell-bottomed trousers I would have (and I don’t know why I am still preserving them). I get reminders about influenza vaccinations but they don’t convince me. I get diabetes diets sent to me by post and e-mail but they don’t offer anything better than what common sense tells me. I get special health insurance offers but they are just junk-mail. Investment opportunities for “seniors” come through tele-marketeers or drop through the letter box but I suspect that they use “senior” as a euphemism for “senile”.
Back in my youth when I turned 60 my son – very dispassionately – said to me, “You studied for 20 years , worked for 40 and you have 20 years left. Why would you want to do anything you did not want to?”. At that time I was deciding whether to continue working for a large multi-national or to do my own thing. With the question formulated as my son did, the answer became a “no-brainer”. Well I have been doing what I wanted to since then. Now I have 15 years to go and don’t intend to do anything I don’t want to. I may be past-it but the list of things I want to do – and can do – keeps expanding. Fifteen years won’t come close to being long enough to get through the entire list so I will have to make priorities. Paradoxically, I am in no rush though.
I wrote my first book a couple of years ago and 3 more are burgeoning in my head. I want to get at least a couple of these written and published. I have idle thoughts about combining onions and red chillies with management theory. It will have to be a cookery book on odd numbered pages and management analogies on even numbered pages! That will take some doing and I have no idea – yet – of how to make it work. I must still organise my books and establish my “library”. I have still to be fully converted to Kindle. Over the years I have visited some 100 countries while “on business” but now I want to see some of those places without the constraints of having “business” to do. I want to retrace my father’s steps in 1942 when he journeyed 3000 miles to freedom and that is a major project spanning 6 countries which may take a year or so to set up. I want to continue lecturing and especially to young graduates as long as I can still maintain relevance and connect with them. I want to continue holding workshops and seminars for managers as long as I can stay abreast of what is happening in industry and I can add value. I want to drive slowly across what was once called Eastern Europe but I have no desire to sacrifice comfort while doing so. I want to go on a leisurely safari in South Africa. I would like to cruise to the Galapagos and Easter Island. I would like to participate – for a day or two – in an archaeological dig. I would like to truly find a fossil in the field (and not from a museum shop).
I don’t believe in catastrophe theories. Generations to come will solve their own problems far more effectively than us trying to anticipate and eliminate their challenges. The world is far from perfect. But more people are being fed and clothed then ever before in the history of humanity. The glass is more than half-full.
To be without the burden of the expectations of others is a luxury and being 65 looks like fun!
The world is lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep
and miles to go before I sleep
(apologies to Robert Frost)
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