Mid-life Crisis Too Soon!!

I was 56 then.  When I announced, with a muted sense of elation and perceptible relief, `I have decided to retire; no more full time employment for me', my dear wife was neither shocked nor upset because she had had some prior inkling. In nearly three decades of marriage, she had learnt to live with my periodic bouts of stupidity.  Nevertheless, she rolled her eyes and asked pointedly `So, what would you do for the next 30 years'?  Her rationale was simple; retirement is concurrent with the act of kicking the bucket or whatever else one kicks as a terminal effort.  Half-measures like part-time consulting, usually floated as trial balloons before one fades away, are not for the traditionalist in her.  This is not due to any desire to see the spouse out of the house during the day; it never came to such a pause because she herself has had a bustling and enjoyable career all along.  The simple explanation is that she would have rightfully belonged in Japan, where the concept of Shushin Koyo or Life-time Employment has been taken a bit too literally.

Since then, in the past few years, my path has been strewn with bright men with a munificent supply of grey cells, who used to be young but can no longer carry the tag of `youth'.  Unsurprisingly this bunch has been afflicted by the modern malady of antipathy to normal employment.  They chuck well-paying jobs and `retire' at forty.  After that it is a roller-coaster (metaphorically, nothing to do with the pace of life) of sabbaticals, part-time jobs, occasional bouts of mentoring, hesitant peeks into that esoteric world of startups where hordes of companies start, but very few go up except in smoke -- all these generously punctuated by more sabbaticals!  One cannot divine  what their state of mind is because while they do not display any predilection to ecstasy, they are not sombre either.  Nor do they divulge anything concrete as to what they are looking for in their `unemployed', free state.

The previous generation in India would have, a la Japan, gleefully worked the full quota of forty years in the same office/factory (preferably and probably at the same work station - stability was such a virtue!). They then euphorically accepted another decade of periodic extensions, so that they could one day seamlessly transfer to la la land - of course, without any expectations of Oscars.  Wives did not even twitch a facial muscle in disagreement with this absolutely delightful turn of events, whereby there was little or no disruption to  their own routine in life and they didn't have to suddenly suffer irritable doses of undesirable intrusion from you know who.  Logical, unless you were one of those brave wives demanding a greater slice of the post-retirement-husband, despite all the well-documented, attendant handicaps of such an arrangement.  This would have worked only if the wife had trained the husband in virtues like docility, servility etc., in which case the husband, if he had any sense (is that an oxymoron?) would never retire anyway!

This author has an avowed policy of maintaining unwavering neutrality, primarily in the interests of saving his skin and has no intention of recording approbation or condemnation for the previous generation's steadfastness or the next's seeming skittishness.  Having said that, he would like to document for posterity (otherwise, he would be failing in his solemn role as a chronicler of contemporary trends and behaviour), some genuine perceptions of the current propensity to prematurely wade into what used to be a mid-life crisis. The disclaimer here is, this probably is not the case with everyone, but this author has come across enough specimens to make a compelling case for what this piece is about. Again, what follows are perceptions collated from various sources, not necessarily the author's views.        

If one asks any youngster who has recently entered any employment, regardless of employer, salary, location or the type of work, the one strong and prevalent sentiment expressed would be that he/she does not like what he/she is doing - there could be exceptions, but they are just that.  So, these youngsters study for four to six years and prepare themselves for a career and are disenchanted almost forthwith, without giving themselves or the career a decent run.  When a puzzled someone questions why, the invariable answer is `this is not what I expected to do; I am not enjoying this; it is boring'.  Boring, in three months?? Not that they are clear about what they want to do.  Something should be wrong with the system which prepares them for careers this way.  Also, the youngsters probably are very ambivalent (ignorant would be more like it?) about their own expectations from jobs/careers.  So, this affliction sets in pretty early in life now, unlike the old days, when once someone was fortunate to grab a job (there was no question of liking it or not, for lack of choices) one stuck to it, come hell or high water, until one managed to find something less traumatizing in a couple of decades.  Solidity was the dominating trait those days.

Natural progression takes over from this stage and after about twenty years, some of this crop have changed multiple jobs, bolstered their savings a bit and believe they have attained some level of financial security.  The time-tested routine of bachelor's degree in India, Masters in USA or something similar, followed by a decent job takes care of life up to this point.  But, a query as to why they are dissatisfied with their careers and are looking at premature retirement, or what they wanted to do, elicits an answer startlingly similar to what a fresher says at the beginning of his career - boring job, not enjoying it, etc.  Very surprising, because in this time and age when the ability to carefully arrange two idlis, one vadai, chutney and sambar or a few colourful vegetables and leaves on a plate can fetch a lucrative job as a Food Curator, why are talented people still struggling to find what they like or love to do?

The above conundrum unravelled one day when a smart guy in his forties hit the proverbial nail on the head, saying `I am looking to retire because I am not making any impact'.  Eh?? Obviously not the kind of impact he wanted to make, because he just has to look around to see a happy, contented family, enjoying a good standard of life.  On the surface, for an average onlooker, all is well but subcutaneously something is nagging such people to move to a higher plane, real or imaginary, keeping them growling till they do something about it.  But, the problem is that one has to take cognizance of all pertinent issues - (a) Not everyone is a super man with the potential to make a massive impact. (b) Most people are built not for creative zest but for trudging utility; each one should know where his limit is and where he belongs. There lies the pointer to simple success in life. (c) Try one must - to achieve, but with the caveat that at some point, one has to be realistic about the way forward and settle down, in order not to betray the interests of loved ones (d) If not, one can cause immense damage to self-belief, family, one's own health etc.  Straightforward, but people could be myopic when it comes to such things.

I am reminded of a line very senior managers regularly use to convince junior managers to be balanced while rating performance - `We can't all be stars and walking on water. Nor do we need that because then, who will do the actual work'??  Very true, I think.