This is a reflection on reflections:
There is a moment when I enter our new house that I wonder where I am. Have I stepped onto a different planet? Each step is full of potential and bathed in light. I am wandering from a world of 45 years of non-stop work into a world of work tempered with silent moments of nothingness. What happens when we stop? When I stop, I mean really stop, I feel like there is a wave of business energy pressing on my soul–trying to pull me back into the sea of capital endeavors. It is not a pleasant pressure.
This pulling will take a while to jettison. I am realizing that for way too long my life and full energy has been focused on serving others–be it my children, my parents in their old age, clients, fellow passengers at Meyer, Scherer & Rockcastle, Ltd. I was, I believe, pre-wired to serve; to work hard; to do whatever it took to land the big fish. But, now with a day like Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day,” I am realizing that “it” is trying to “keep me hanging on.” Without any sense of remorse, I am now reflecting on what it means to shift to serving me. Even writing this makes me cringe. Selfish? Foolish? Arrogant?
My task now is to understand what “serving somebody’ (thanks Bob Dylan for that one) really means. I am somebody–and serving myself may lead to a richer, deeper understanding of how I can serve others. It is a bit of an alchemical feat. Reflecting on the picture of the reflections from one of skylights, I wonder which is more real: the aperture or the reflection?
Jeff, you put it perfectly…looking forward to the adjustments of retirement, but also anxious about all the changes.