The Angela Lansbury Paradigm

Since I was a child, I can remember learning about what a "normal" work life was. You went to the same job in the same building for 35 years. You worked until your late 50s or early 60s, and then you retired to golf or fish. As if flipping a switch, one day you went from "working" to "retired." Generally, work was drudgery, something that greyed your hair and caused your back to sag. Conversely, retirement was carefree, a time to play and to walk with a spring in your step.

Recently, I was struck by a different model for a lifetime of work -- Angela Lansbury. Funny, but she's always been there -- for all of us. She's acted in movies since 1944, and played Elizabeth Taylor older sister in National Velvet. A recent article in The New York Times told of her recent triumph, at age 83, in Blithe Spirit on Broadway. For a moment, a thought flashed through my mind "Wow, still working at 83!" and then I realized that she was working because she loved what she was doing. Her life and her work are intertwined, a double helix of physical and emotional growth.

We often hear of the need to save for retirement -- the grasshopper and the ant fable of toiling away to save bread crumbs for a lengthy retirement of doing little. What if, like Angela Lansbury, we never retired? Not because we can't afford to, but because we can't afford not to?

What activity doesn't feel like work, even when you are laboring physically or mentally? For me, gardening involves a lot of physical exertion and mundane tasks, but it fills me with such a sense of satisfaction. It is work that I can't afford not to do.

So, what if we shifted the way we think about work and retirement? What if working becomes about controlling the what, when, how, and with whom? And maybe as we age, we work fewer hours, but we pursue a variety of interests we've cultivated over a lifetime.

What if we, like Angela Lansbury, we are always looking for that next opportunity to whirl on stage in a turban?

Tackling Burnout

Here is a link to a great article about burnout on the job. This is a topic I encounter often, and the article addresses both the symptoms of burnout and possible action steps to cope with it.