Running out the clock

Many of my acquaintances are about my age, and like me, are retired. None of the group has to work any longer, although the amount of disposable income of each varies depending on their current circumstances, past decisions, work history, and so on. In place of the structure imposed by work, they have the luxury of time mostly free of obligations. I have often heard retirees say that they sometimes don’t know what day it is. The way they allocate their time varies. Some travel. Some volunteer. Some take classes. Some pursue hobbies. Some pass their days reading, surfing the Internet, or watching television and videos. The challenge for many, however, is simply how to fill the day.

The lack of structure that comes with retirement is something completely new for some people. In youth the structure is imposed by parents—what to do, when to do it, and how to behave. In school, additional structure comes from teachers and class schedules. Following school, for some there is the military with its rigid set of rules. Then there are decades of work where actions and rules are set by organizational policy and enforced by bosses, where weekends and vacations are the only days without obligation. All of that changes with retirement. Suddenly, the entire calendar opens up. Days become interchangeable and flow seamlessly from one to the other.

With few deadlines, no reports due, no final exams, what is missing for many retirees is a purpose, a raison d’etre. They end up just whiling away each day, watching the calendar pages turn like they do in the old movies to indicate a passage of time when little happens. Some may be forced to passively watch the clock and calendar out of necessity due to lack of money or to health issues. Others, however, fall into a routine reinforced by habit, family expectations, fear, or lack of imagination.

Rather than the image of calendar pages flipping rapidly, a more apt metaphor for this comes from football. Toward the end of a game when one team is safely ahead of its opponent, the players on the winning team try to run out the clock by using rushing plays that offer little risk of losing the ball to the other side. Many retirees are simply running out the clock in their own way. Each day is the equivalent of simply taking the snap each morning and falling on the ball or doing a quarterback sneak up the middle—nothing even halfway daring like a draw play or a quick sideline pass.

Once the clock runs out on life, though, it doesn’t matter whether a person has won or lost, whether he or she fumbled or had a pass intercepted. What matters is to have played out the last quarter in a way that is fitting for that person, even if it is running out the clock. For me, I hope I will be willing and able to make a long pass down the middle in the hope of a touchdown, even if it is fourth and long, deep in my end of the field.