Never Retire, Always Evolve

There’s no such thing as retirement. 

To retire means to withdraw. To withdraw means to cease. To cease means to come to an end. Every ending brings forth a new beginning; therefore, human beings are always evolving, transitioning, and transforming.

“I’m not retiring. I’m re-firing.” — Ben Ives, 19-years as a Navy SEAL, current Performance Consultant for the LA Kings

Professions that burn brightest and fastest: elite sports. The average NFL career lasts just over three years. MLB and NBA players average four to six seasons. 60-80% of those who leave the Big Four leagues face bankruptcy and or divorce within two to five years. Due to extremely narrow identities as professional athletes, they take over eight years to evolve into new, consistent roles and responsibilities. Most never fully and stably transition.

When you retire, you start feeling left out. Then you start to get low — there’s no game tomorrow to lift you up, so you just keep sinking and sinking.

– Ben Wallace, former NBA Champion

The opposite of sinking low and feeling left out is rising up and engaging a community. The word ‘community’ means shared service. When we belong to a community, organization, or team, we remain engaged. Engagement provides meaning. Meaning provides purpose, reason for living, and impetus to strive. Purpose pulls us upward and onward.

Whose responsibility is it to transition? Ours, individually, always.

Why should we focus on evolving? Because our health and well-being requires us to do so.

How do we transform our identity? By creating a vision, going on a mission, and surrounding ourselves with like-minded relationships.

Identity: to make the same as ____. 

Who do we want to become? What would we like to be the same as? What kind of leader, family member, or friend?

Life designs us and then we design our lives  

Three steps to transformation:

1. Create a vision. Imagine an ideal future self and the feelings associated with that person, status, and responsibility. Be specific. Integrate pain, paid, and passion — What breaks your heart? What could you be paid, financially or emotionally, to achieve? What are you extremely interested in? Your individualized vision is the integration of those answers.

2. Write out the consistent actions that would increase the probability of that vision becoming a reality in the coming years. These activities make up a mission. For example, finish the following statement: “Every day and in every way, I…” We become who we consistently be. Shift from ideation to implementation, from exploration to execution, from imagination to initiation. Daily disciplines determine destiny.

3. Go to where you are celebrated, not just tolerated. Which club, group, or community could you become a part of? Where could you provide value? Who needs you? Relationships are where we go to relate. You belong with those who have similar values, interests, and passions. Start by going to the locations that attract the characteristics and qualities you admire; consistently show up to those places; over time, volunteer and host events for that community. The more you give, the more you live.

Vision. Mission. Relationships.

“Friendship arises out of mere companionship when two or more of the companions discover that they have in common some insight or interest or even taste which the others do not share and which, until that moment, each believed to be his or her own unique treasure or burden. The typical expression of opening friendship would be something like, "What? You, too? I thought I was the only one." It is when two such persons discover one another, when, whether with immense difficulties and semi-articulate fumblings or with what would seem to us amazing and elliptical speed, they share their vision. It is then that friendship is born. Instantly they stand together in an immense solitude.” — C.S. Lewis, renowned author and theologian

The reason individuals struggle to transition: underlying feelings of isolation. If a person is no longer part of one tribe, where does he or she belong? In that question is a quest. We must not retire and withdraw from society simply because we move on from one group, huddle, or locker room. We must seek reunification. We must show up vulnerably to a new tribe in the hopes of building companionship. We must find the courage to begin again, to curiously believe in new friendships, and to transition naturally.

Before a caterpillar becomes a butterfly, it invests a days to weeks being a pupa, also known as a chrysalis. During this stage, it reorganizes its cells before developing wings. Since a butterfly lives, on average, only one month to a year, it would make sense to rush this stage of maturation, right? No. That’s not how nature works! The days of this stage are necessary, precious, and vital to the evolution of a healthy, adult butterfly. Pupating too early, which is caused by stress, would lead to death because a butterfly would not be able to adequately pump fluid to and through its wings. Negative, external interference damages development. A chrysalis must evolve on its own. Using nutrients within its immediate surroundings, a chrysalis undergoes a complex process of transformation. Within 21 days (sometimes over half its life), a mere caterpillar-turned-chrysalis transitions into a spirited butterfly — ready and able to fly, explore, and reproduce.

A retiring transforming human remains like a chrysalis. During this stage of development, individuals ought to become aware of their values, reorganize their priorities, and embody patience. Letting go of their past and accepting their present are true tests. Once those tests are passed, they may then prepare their wings to fly.

A good life is a constant reordering of our loves.

– St. Augustine

—

What’s done is done,

But the future has not yet come.

Where should we go?

Why would we feel this low?

Who could we become now?

The evolved allow…

a past to fade and a present to be

filled with faith in what eyes cannot yet see.

Look for a beginning at one end;

for in every chapter we are still a friend.

—

There’s no such thing as retirement.

There’s only evolution, transition, and transformation.

We control our perspective, not His timing.

But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: with the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.

– 2 Peter 3:8

— MG