A rousing harangue for foundering retirees 3

Thoughts from a Retirement Coach

By Mariella Vigneux, MBA, ACC
Certified Professional Coach

This article is to rouse those foundering in retirement – to awaken and revive those who are sinking, those not sure what they are doing or where they are heading.  Hold onto your hat… I wrote this after too much coffee.

“There had been a kind of pleasure, latterly, in lying up here, listening to the storms, forgetting for a while where he was other than at the wheel of a big, safe ship, ploughing through the seas towards a headland and not, as he had been in the other kinds of dreams, sinking beneath the waves, weighted with sadness and wishing he had learned how to fish.”

– Frances Fyfield, Undercurrents

Ploughing through rough seas, no headland in sight

Get your bearings, you sorry barnacle!  The seas can be savage.  You must know yourself and where you’re heading.  Old age is not for sissies, and retirement isn’t either.  Oh, it may seem that way – at times – with the lulling effect of leisure, the gentle swells of endless days, with no taskmaster shouting orders, no approaching storm clouds on the horizon. But then the crack of thunder and crash of sleeting rain sends your ship scudding sideways.  You’re suddenly in the grip of a storm, the rum cask flung overboard.  Your child has been diagnosed with cancer, your mate with dementia.  Your investments have gone sour.  And you look around in bewilderment, no land in sight, and wonder where the hell you were going in the first place.

What headland to aim for now?  What will hold you steady in the gale?

Don’t try to sail the ship alone, I say!  She’s more than you can handle and the gales will scupper you.  Awaken your best crew.  Forget the properly suited ones, those ones with fine diction and dirty money in their tightly buttoned pockets.  Trust only the battle scarred, those outrageous warriors, grinning like the fools they are.

Your ship’s nimble and you can bring her ‘round – but only if you guard against a weak wrist at the wheel and sloppy charting of your course.

And stop your bellyaching, you scurvy retiring seadog.  Stand tall, throw out your chest, and roar like a thundering fellow, salt spray caught in your beard, fists raised against the heavens.  Accept the struggle with vigour and know that you are captain.  Bash through the storm, cursing with your mates, knowing you have battled before, and will again.

And once you’ve safely reached port, it’ll be the journey you regale your drinking mates with.  The real destiny is the journey itself.

Arr, me hearties! Onwards and away!