How My Mom's Retirement Taught Me What To Do With My Life

Happy Mother's Day (weekend)

Here’s a TED Talk that didn’t reach Brene Brown's level of fame but still completely altered my perspective on career development.

The speaker wasn’t a Nobel Prize-winning psychologist.

He wasn’t an Olympic athlete.

Adam Poswolsky was like, well… us.

A twenty-something unhappy with his career, struggling to find purpose, and comparing himself to others he deemed more successful.

He said something that had been on my mind since my early twenties, but I couldn’t find the words for it.

“There was my friend going off to business school, and I’d think. Maybe I should get an MBA.”

“There was a friend going to teach at a charter school and I’d think. Maybe I should go work at a charter school.”

“There was a friend opening up a food truck. Maybe I should open a food truck even though I’m an awful driver and a really bad cook.”

The grass is always greener.

He also had a friend who graduated from law school and decided to switch careers to become a social studies teacher with 100k in student loan debt.

Maybe it’s not.

You can do anything, but you can’t do everything

My mom recently retired from a 30-plus-year career that she adored.

I remember all her fears and challenges leading up to retirement day.

What was she going to do?

Where did she want to go?

Who would she be?

We don’t think about it this way, but retirees face the same challenge twentysomethings face when entering the real world. We are each given the lovely bone that comes with freedom: Endless possibilities.

What would we do?

Where do we live?

Who do we want to be?

I had little advice to share with her because I was still trying to figure my shit out.

However, I did learn from her.

How did she figure out what she wanted to do?

She watched herself.

She observed what she did in her spare time all those years.

She enjoyed nature. Long hikes in Toledo’s metro parks. The critters. The growing things. She’s always been a huge birder. By the time she retired, she could identify more bird calls than Teddy Roosevelt and Steven Rinella combined. No joke.

So she started there.

Now she works for the Ohio Parks Department, happier than ever.

The secret wasn't finding something new. It was noticing what already brought her joy when nobody was watching.

Don’t place too much pressure on yourself.

Adam’s TED Talk changed the way I looked at my career because he eased the pressure to have everything figured out today.

He’s not saying you should quit your job tomorrow.

He’s not saying you should go work at a French charter school.

He’s not saying you should get an MBA tomorrow.

He’s saying that you should start.

Observe yourself and note what you do with your free time and make a little bet in that direction.

Start with a blog.

Start by volunteering.

Start by asking questions.

It took me years to figure out that I wanted to write. I started reading about writing. Then I wrote articles for my commercial real estate business. Then I wrote book reviews. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.

But I started, and now it’s a career path.