Cover of Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?
“People who tell you that “I could paint a painting like that” are missing the point. The craft of the painting, the craft of writing that e-mail, the craft of building that PowerPoint presentation- those are the easy parts. It’s the art and the insight and the bravery of value creation that are rewarded.”
Seth Godin in Linchpin.
Photo by Manlio_k
There have been times in my life when it was difficult for me to be positive. In a negative environment when every action or word seems to carry venom, maintaining a positive outlook is difficult. That is one of the problems with working. You can’t control the environment or the people you deal with. It is different when you retire because you can control the it all.
It is easy to look at retirement as continuation of the life that you lived as an employee but it is wrong and so limiting to accept and continue those patterns. We make adjustments as an employee because we do not control very much about life. We can’t control when we work, where we work, how much we make and who we associate with. In truth, there isn’t very much that we can control and so we cope. We accept and tolerate what we do not want and if we are not careful, we become part of the problem. We become generators of negativity.
Negativity can take over our actions and make us defensive and suspicious. Negativity can limit the possibilities that we recognize around us. Negativity can blind us to the fact that we are generating negativity to protect against the environment. We see that the world around us in negative and are blind to our own negativity. If that is the kind of work environment you experienced you are going to take the defenses you learned with you when you retire. You are going to assume that you still have no control or ability to create the retirement that you desire. And you are going to miss the opportunity to make your retirement outrageous because you are wrong.
When you retire, you regain control of your life because only you make the important decisions about where and what you do with your time, who you associate with and where you live. If you have turned into a generator of negative thoughts, you will never recognize these opportunities and stay in the cage of negativity that you created when you worked. You limit your possibilities. The patterns and behaviors that you developed to protect you from negative surroundings keep you from seeing the opportunities around you when you retire. It limits what you will consider as possible. Your retirement wishes will be puny, weak little shoots rather than mighty oaks reaching to the heavens.
Take some time in your retirement – or better yet- as you plan your retirement- to think about yourself and your attitudes. Do you expect good things to happen to you or have you been conditioned to believe that only bad things will come your way. Do you have exciting dreams about your retirement or do you only see a dreary continuation of the negative life while you worked.? If you are negative, give yourself a boost by reading a good book to get you thinking positively and drop the baggage that isn’t making your retirement wishes happen. If you are generating negativity – just stop and open your eyes to an outrageous retirement.
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