When I starting working full time last month, I knew there would be an impact on my life. I knew that I’d be getting up and out the door way earlier than I was accustomed to and that most of my waking moments would be dedicated to tasks that were not directly related to moving my own life forward. But these are the trade offs you make to earn an income.
What I did’t realize was how this new experience, moving outside the little world I’ve created for myself over the past several years would improve my awareness and broaden my perspective. I guess I didn’t realize how insulated I had become. I’ve been active in my community, but what I’m learning is that my ‘community’ is largely composed of people like myself, mature, retired or nearing retirement.
These days I find myself working alongside much younger people; most young enough to be my children, some of them could even be my grandchildren (if I’d started a bit earlier) and I am becoming keenly aware that many of the assumptions I’ve had about these subsequent generations have been off kilter.
In the past, when I used to look around at the membership in the volunteer and community groups I’m involved in and couldn’t help but notice that the average age of the folks around me was more or less my age and older, I made the assumption that the reason that younger people were not becoming involved was because they don’t care. Since returning to the full time work force, I am getting a much different picture.
I got a glimpse of what it’s like to be a younger working woman last fall when I spent a couple of days helping my daughter Maggie while her husband was out of town. Driving down I fantasized about how nice it would be to spend some time alone with her. In reality, I hardly saw her at all. Even with my help with childcare and household stuff, the demands of a three year old once she got home from work and the graduate level courses she’s taking left her with barely enough time to catch her breath.
Working full time is hard. It is draining. No matter how energizing the job, how friendly the work environment, the fact is that the vast majority of my day is spent on preparing for work, commuting to and from work and working. The remaining two or three hours of my wake time are spent trying to catch up on all the stuff I used to do, cleaning up after dinner. I’m lucky, my husband has taken over most of the cooking! My last few waking hours are spent sharing some quality time with my spouse. I am also finding that keeping up with all the volunteer duties I’ve laden myself with are harder and harder to keep up with.
I guess the bottom line is that like many things in life, there are trade-offs involved in doing what you what you want or would like to do and what is necessary to be done. And, it doesn’t matter where you are in life, choices have to be made and priorities set. Right now, for me, working full time seems like something I need to do. And, if I continue working after my contracted end date of March 1st passes, I will have to make some hard choices and reevaluate my priorities.
Reality check, huh? My last team, had a couple of oldsters like me and a good number of members who were clearly young enough to be my children as well as several mid career professionals. I loved leading them. We worked extremely well together and you are spot on; they were well aware of the what was going on in the world and used their limited time and resources outside of work widely to meet both their personal and community priorities. They were also great fun! Now that I e retired, I purposely joined a Rotary Club with a younger membership to avoid spending all my time with like-age folks.