A Retirement-Sabbatical
Jan. 28th, 2007 07:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dedalus_1947The word retirement raises mixed feelings in me. The word both excites me, and repulses me. On the one hand, it generates visions of comfort, ease, relaxation, and freedom from the stress and constraints of work. I would not have to face the people, problems, and anxieties that bombard me every day as a middle school principal. I would be able to concentrate on the activities I enjoy: reading, writing, photographing, exercising, learning, meditating, and seeing new things and people. On the other hand, retirement also raises images of laziness, slovenliness, and activities without point or purpose. I see myself on a never-ending vacation: getting out of bed at 10:00 A.M., reading the newspaper until noon, distracting myself for hours on the computer, dining, drinking, and falling asleep in front of the television. I fear becoming dull, bored, and unkempt, without the need to produce, achieve, or impress.
Retirement was never a major problem or a concern three years ago. I never gave it too much thought. However, it seems like the moment I turned 58 years of age, I became obsessed with it. Suddenly, it is all my friends and I talk about when we get together. Retirement has become a countdown, and a major headache. What do I do during retirement? Will my retirement salary be sufficient? How do I manage retirement while my wife continues to pursue her career? The concept has generated more questions, worries and anxieties than I ever thought possible. I’m really stuck. I’m anxious to retire, because I want to escape the work that I’m doing; but, I’m afraid of retirement, because I don’t know what I will do when I’m free. That is the basic problem. It is compounded with the additional uncertainties of life and finances in a retired state.
There is plenty of advice on the subject, most of it financial. There is a veritable tidal wave of information in bookstores, on the internet, and from friends and relations. All their advice has one thing in common; they tell you to plan, plan, and plan. Visualize the retirement you wish to have, then pursue that goal in a strategic manner. Visions, missions, planning, implementation, and assessment, it all sounds too much like the work I am trying to escape. So, what do I do? I need time to figure this out, but I don’t want to delay my retirement. I need to give myself time to decide what I should do during retirement. I need something different.
I grew up in a family of teachers, on my mother’s side of the family, in Mexico. My grandmother was a teacher, along with one aunt, two uncles, and my mother. These latter four teachers constituted the youngest members in a family of eight. They were the last to work, marry and leave home. I still remember their discussions at family dinners, when we visited. They would speak and argue about philosophy, politics, history, religion, and their careers as teachers. One topic that intrigued me was the “sabbatical”. At this point in their lives, my aunt and uncles were too young to think about retirement, but the sabbatical was an idea they loved to talk about. As they explained it, once a teacher, or professor, had completed a certain number of years providing adequate professional service, they qualified for a sabbatical leave. A sabbatical was a yearlong, educational opportunity, which allowed teachers to broaden their subject matter knowledge, or professional skills, by traveling, or taking classes in a college or university. It was an intellectual break from the practice of teaching, or administration, to pursue further studies or artistic realization. My uncles, aunt, and mother, spoke about it in dreamy terms. It was a chimerical reward for 7 to 10 years of service. Their school or university system would allow them a year leave with pay (usually half their salary) to study abroad, and improve themselves as cultured individuals and professionals. They spoke of traveling and attending universities in Italy, Spain, or the United States. They spoke of pursuing intellectual explorations into the arts and humanities, or subjects that would complement the countries and locales they would visit. I never forgot those wishful conversations about sabbaticals, but I never took them seriously. I was still a child, and they were young professionals who had committed to careers and lives in education. I just enjoyed hearing them spin their tales of travel and learning.
It was not until 1980’s that I chose to pursue a career in school administration in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Over the years, I had toyed with the idea of professions in the U.S. Foreign Service or higher education. However, with a wife, and two children at home, and over 5 years experience as a private and public school teacher, I knew it was time to concentrate my efforts in one professional direction. I chose secondary schools, and began a course of study that would culminate in another Master’s degree and credential in School Administration.
It was at this time that I also began noticing the occasional teacher and administrator, who was going to, or coming back from, a sabbatical. They were invariably happy people who described the places and events they had experienced, or were planning, in glowing, exciting terms. It was an energizing break, which renewed them, and made them better at their jobs, or happier doing them. I concluded that the sabbatical was yet another good reason to choose teaching and administration as a career in public education.
Unfortunately, by 1992, sabbaticals had ceased to be a practical incentive for professional growth. Cash strapped school districts and university systems had pretty much eliminated them from their budgets. Teachers and administrators did not dream of them, did not talk of them, and did not take them. The sabbatical as an educational concept ceased to exist in Los Angeles and California. The only break from teaching or administration could be a self-imposed cessation, resignation, or retirement. The concept of professional sabbaticals disappeared.
I am now 59 years old. I am less than two years away from retirement, and I have mixed feelings about it. I find myself, more and more, using thoughts of retirement as an escapist strategy. Whenever I’m unhappy, frustrated, or annoyed at work, I go right into wishful-retirement mode. This is pique, not planning. It does point out the obvious fact that schoolwork is not a source of fulfillment for me right now. School administration can be satisfying, sometimes, but not fulfilling. What I really need is a break to find what it is I want to do with retirement, so the idea of a “retirement-sabbatical” really makes sense to me. I need to take a year off to get my head together over what I want to do; a personalized sabbatical might do the trick.
The first step of my “retirement-sabbatical” plan is to choose the optimal time to resign and officially retire. The second part of the plan is to prepare for a half-year sabbatical to Morelia, in Michoacan, Mexico. Morelia is a beautiful, colonial city in the middle of Mexico, which is still largely untouched by industrialization, overpopulation, and tourism. It has a rich colonial history and houses one of the oldest universities in Mexico. In such a strange, new, and challenging environment, I’m sure to come up with SOMETHING I want to do for the rest of my life! This move does away with my fear of degenerating into a lazy, slovenly, and dull existence. Living and attending a university in Mexico would give me structure, purpose, and stimulation. This situation would also create a large amount of discomfort, and stress, by placing me in a different culture and environment – certainly for the first 4 weeks. It should cause me to reflect, analyze, learn, and adopt. I’d relearn Spanish and write constantly, because I’d have to, to survive. I’d reach out to make new friends and reconnect with family because I’d have to, to survive. I’d relearn how much I need and love Kathy and the kids because I’d be so terribly homesick and lonely.
I have two years from today to plan, organize, and implement my Retirement-Sabbatical strategy. My goal is to enroll for the second semester in the Universidad de Michoacan in Morelia, in January of 2009. I’ve taken my first step toward this goal, and I’m now visualizing this “retirement-sabbatical”. I found photos of Morelia, showing the colonial town and cathedral. I also found a great image of a palm tree with the word “Sabbatical” emblazoned across it. That’s my vision and my goal. I think my rationale is sound. Now, I just have to address it like one of my training campaigns. I need to take it slow and easy, but steady and consistently. I need to keep my eye on the prize – and now I have a concrete image of that prize.
Retirement was never a major problem or a concern three years ago. I never gave it too much thought. However, it seems like the moment I turned 58 years of age, I became obsessed with it. Suddenly, it is all my friends and I talk about when we get together. Retirement has become a countdown, and a major headache. What do I do during retirement? Will my retirement salary be sufficient? How do I manage retirement while my wife continues to pursue her career? The concept has generated more questions, worries and anxieties than I ever thought possible. I’m really stuck. I’m anxious to retire, because I want to escape the work that I’m doing; but, I’m afraid of retirement, because I don’t know what I will do when I’m free. That is the basic problem. It is compounded with the additional uncertainties of life and finances in a retired state.
There is plenty of advice on the subject, most of it financial. There is a veritable tidal wave of information in bookstores, on the internet, and from friends and relations. All their advice has one thing in common; they tell you to plan, plan, and plan. Visualize the retirement you wish to have, then pursue that goal in a strategic manner. Visions, missions, planning, implementation, and assessment, it all sounds too much like the work I am trying to escape. So, what do I do? I need time to figure this out, but I don’t want to delay my retirement. I need to give myself time to decide what I should do during retirement. I need something different.
I grew up in a family of teachers, on my mother’s side of the family, in Mexico. My grandmother was a teacher, along with one aunt, two uncles, and my mother. These latter four teachers constituted the youngest members in a family of eight. They were the last to work, marry and leave home. I still remember their discussions at family dinners, when we visited. They would speak and argue about philosophy, politics, history, religion, and their careers as teachers. One topic that intrigued me was the “sabbatical”. At this point in their lives, my aunt and uncles were too young to think about retirement, but the sabbatical was an idea they loved to talk about. As they explained it, once a teacher, or professor, had completed a certain number of years providing adequate professional service, they qualified for a sabbatical leave. A sabbatical was a yearlong, educational opportunity, which allowed teachers to broaden their subject matter knowledge, or professional skills, by traveling, or taking classes in a college or university. It was an intellectual break from the practice of teaching, or administration, to pursue further studies or artistic realization. My uncles, aunt, and mother, spoke about it in dreamy terms. It was a chimerical reward for 7 to 10 years of service. Their school or university system would allow them a year leave with pay (usually half their salary) to study abroad, and improve themselves as cultured individuals and professionals. They spoke of traveling and attending universities in Italy, Spain, or the United States. They spoke of pursuing intellectual explorations into the arts and humanities, or subjects that would complement the countries and locales they would visit. I never forgot those wishful conversations about sabbaticals, but I never took them seriously. I was still a child, and they were young professionals who had committed to careers and lives in education. I just enjoyed hearing them spin their tales of travel and learning.
It was not until 1980’s that I chose to pursue a career in school administration in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Over the years, I had toyed with the idea of professions in the U.S. Foreign Service or higher education. However, with a wife, and two children at home, and over 5 years experience as a private and public school teacher, I knew it was time to concentrate my efforts in one professional direction. I chose secondary schools, and began a course of study that would culminate in another Master’s degree and credential in School Administration.
It was at this time that I also began noticing the occasional teacher and administrator, who was going to, or coming back from, a sabbatical. They were invariably happy people who described the places and events they had experienced, or were planning, in glowing, exciting terms. It was an energizing break, which renewed them, and made them better at their jobs, or happier doing them. I concluded that the sabbatical was yet another good reason to choose teaching and administration as a career in public education.
Unfortunately, by 1992, sabbaticals had ceased to be a practical incentive for professional growth. Cash strapped school districts and university systems had pretty much eliminated them from their budgets. Teachers and administrators did not dream of them, did not talk of them, and did not take them. The sabbatical as an educational concept ceased to exist in Los Angeles and California. The only break from teaching or administration could be a self-imposed cessation, resignation, or retirement. The concept of professional sabbaticals disappeared.
I am now 59 years old. I am less than two years away from retirement, and I have mixed feelings about it. I find myself, more and more, using thoughts of retirement as an escapist strategy. Whenever I’m unhappy, frustrated, or annoyed at work, I go right into wishful-retirement mode. This is pique, not planning. It does point out the obvious fact that schoolwork is not a source of fulfillment for me right now. School administration can be satisfying, sometimes, but not fulfilling. What I really need is a break to find what it is I want to do with retirement, so the idea of a “retirement-sabbatical” really makes sense to me. I need to take a year off to get my head together over what I want to do; a personalized sabbatical might do the trick.
The first step of my “retirement-sabbatical” plan is to choose the optimal time to resign and officially retire. The second part of the plan is to prepare for a half-year sabbatical to Morelia, in Michoacan, Mexico. Morelia is a beautiful, colonial city in the middle of Mexico, which is still largely untouched by industrialization, overpopulation, and tourism. It has a rich colonial history and houses one of the oldest universities in Mexico. In such a strange, new, and challenging environment, I’m sure to come up with SOMETHING I want to do for the rest of my life! This move does away with my fear of degenerating into a lazy, slovenly, and dull existence. Living and attending a university in Mexico would give me structure, purpose, and stimulation. This situation would also create a large amount of discomfort, and stress, by placing me in a different culture and environment – certainly for the first 4 weeks. It should cause me to reflect, analyze, learn, and adopt. I’d relearn Spanish and write constantly, because I’d have to, to survive. I’d reach out to make new friends and reconnect with family because I’d have to, to survive. I’d relearn how much I need and love Kathy and the kids because I’d be so terribly homesick and lonely.
I have two years from today to plan, organize, and implement my Retirement-Sabbatical strategy. My goal is to enroll for the second semester in the Universidad de Michoacan in Morelia, in January of 2009. I’ve taken my first step toward this goal, and I’m now visualizing this “retirement-sabbatical”. I found photos of Morelia, showing the colonial town and cathedral. I also found a great image of a palm tree with the word “Sabbatical” emblazoned across it. That’s my vision and my goal. I think my rationale is sound. Now, I just have to address it like one of my training campaigns. I need to take it slow and easy, but steady and consistently. I need to keep my eye on the prize – and now I have a concrete image of that prize.
