Hello friends! Happy New Year and welcome to the January issue of the BIC Magazine.
Based on multiple recent surveys and analyses of workforce exit data, the average age of retirement in the U.S. is 62. I turned 60 this year, a milestone that encourages one to begin considering retirement, when to take it and what it should look like.
We’ve all heard stories about folks who have retired too early, then quickly find themselves bored with playing golf or lying around the house. Many return to the workplace. Much worse, some pass away unexpectedly as if their psyches or even their bodies rejected the sedentary lifestyle.
Ever wonder why many folks are not satisfied or happy with retirement? I’ve seen it enough that I wanted to consider it before I jumped in. After some study, I consider work to be part of the essence of our human nature. Metaphorically, it is in our "DNA".
Many people think they want to be free from work. They define freedom as a complete absence of any constraints of work. But think of a fish. If a fish is "freed" from the water and put on the grass to explore, it has lost its freedom to move, and soon even its life is destroyed. The fish is not freer, but less free, if it cannot honor the essence of its nature. The same principle applies to people.
Sure, work is hard. But so is all of life. Things are broken that way in this world. But consider this: in the story of creation, God worked to create the world and man. God also commissioned man to work. He put man in a garden to "work and keep it". The account of creation leaves us with a striking truth – work was part of God-built paradise on earth. It was perfect work for Adam in the garden, work without frustration or futility. But he messed it up. Work, like other naturally good things, relationships, marriage, eating and sexuality, for example, we as humans can and have messed it up.
But at its best, work is good. Work is quite basic to human need, as basic as rest or friendship. Work is so foundational to our makeup, in fact, that it is one of the few things we can take in significant doses without harm. With work, we can provide for ourselves and others and build community and culture. Without meaningful work, we often sense a significant inner loss and emptiness. Without work, we experience fear, anxiety and lose respect for ourselves.
I recall the CEO of one large midstream company saying, "The best thing about this work is the two guys wearing red jumpsuits driving through town in a company truck that now can provide a good and honest and stable living for themselves and their families". He was speaking of the dignity of work and was proud of the jobs his company provided. And you should be too.
Running a recruiting company, too often I hear voices of fear from the unemployed. Their lives feel chaotic, not knowing if they will be able to pay bills and care for loved ones. They know too well how work brings order and dignity to life.
Not only does work bring personal dignity by bringing order to individual lives, but more generally, work brings order to chaos. Whether it is tending a patch of dirt into a garden, converting raw materials into usable products, or assisting a customer in solving a problem, all work both creates order in the world and allows us to serve others.
And you can remember, other people’s work is serving you too. Nearly every physical item in your life, and every experience you have, is a product of someone else’s work. This is true all the way down to the bathroom you use. Someone else made the soap, installed the pipes and manufactured the tissue.
One can appreciate all the jobs that serve your existence, but it is better to give than receive. When you connect your work with service to others, you can find more purpose in it and have greater engagement and satisfaction. Your job may seem insignificant, but it isn’t. Your service to others is one reason to do every job well. This thought was captured by Martin Luther King Jr. when he said, "If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ’Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well."
I have resolved not to ever retire so long as I have the physical and mental ability to serve others. I may change what kind of work I do, but I will work to bring order to the disorderly. It’s in my DNA.
If you know someone looking for work or are looking to hire, please contact our BIC Recruiting team. If we can’t help you directly, we will try to refer you to someone who can.
An intentional work transition for me is to dedicate more time to working directly with charities. And that leads me, dear reader, to a lovely story. I serve on the board of The Get Together Bay Area, an organization that connects businesspeople with local charities that have specific needs. It was there that I learned of a charity’s need for busing for a specific event. I contacted Swift International (who has provided busing for BIC Alliance events in the past) and after only a brief introduction, they agreed to do a big favor for a group they had not even known about prior to my introduction. Swift stepped up and helped with no questions and no fanfare, just because they felt it was the right thing to do. When I thanked him for his help, Swift’s president, Nerv Thomas, told me, that his daddy taught him that your most valuable reward for work is not pay but God’s favor.
Nerv is a man who understands that the purpose of his work is serving others. He happens to be motivated by faith to do so.
