A Savage Journey to Retirement
I was somewhere around the back nine when I realized the boredom was taking hold. I remember saying something like, “It’s too hot today, I can’t finish 18 holes.” But with 3 pars and a birdie on the front 9, it was pretty clear something was terribly wrong.
There’s nothing quite like a country club’s ‘show & go’ policy to make you feel like you’ve hit the jackpot. No tee times, no crowds, just you, the fairway, and your increasingly irrelevant existential musings. I would escape to the golf course under the pretense of “getting some fresh air,” but really, it was a desperate attempt to avoid yet another day of scrolling through my LinkedIn feed like some digital-age Sisyphus.
The club was becoming a hallucination, an oasis of tranquility in the desert of my new social life. But like all trips, it evaporated upon closer inspection. Sure, I could swing my clubs and imagine I was Arnold Palmer reincarnated, but the reality was more akin to Bill Murray in Caddyshack—a half-crazed, gopher-chasing lunatic searching for meaning in a meaningless game.
Zoom calls, blog posts, LinkedIn and a slow-growing list of online “connections” have become the hallmark of my social life. But let’s face it: social networking is anything but social. It’s a digital hallucination, and can be a very bad trip where everyone’s wears a mask of their most flattering self.
I’m becoming a ghost in the digital ether, haunting my own LinkedIn page and sorry excuse for a web site. The USM method, my intellectual salvation, may only be making things worse. Visions of seeing professional friends and peers have vaporized as PeopleCert acquired ITIL, itSMF USA collapsed, and evangelizing the USM method became a long, slow, slog.
But I’ll continue with the webinars, blogs, white papers, and the occasional (virtual) training class and workshop for now.
The truth is I think I’m lonely. A recent trip to Atlanta to see my sisters (and play golf with my brother-in-law and nephew) was a huge boost. I could accompany my wife on a visit to see her mother, and I suppose the change of scenery might offer a temporary distraction— and I’d get bonus points for being a dutiful husband! But this may be like putting a band-aid on a bullet wound—and I suspect my wife knows this too.
I was warned about the unspoken curse of retirement — loneliness — lurking in the shadows of every solitary round of golf, every silent afternoon.
It’s time for a road trip to reconnected with old friends.
I’ll continue preaching the USM gospel. So, if anyone’s in the NY area and wants to meet, let me know. Not the virtual kind where you stare at a screen and wonder if the other person is secretly checking their email, but a real, face-to-face interaction— the kind where you can see the laughter in someone’s eyes and not just in an emoji.
Of course I’ll still continue to play more golf as well, so if you’re into business golf I’m in!
In the meantime, I’ll be working on my game— and maybe even doing lunch.