The first president of our country, in his famed farewell address, said this.

Every day the increasing weight of years admonishes me more and more that the shade of retirement is as necessary to me as it will be welcome.

George was determined to retire from public life but wanted to take one last effort to impress great truths upon his countrymen.

And it worked. What an inspiring moment in our nation’s history. Because for many of us, there will come a point when we, too, will have to announce to ourselves and possibly to the world, that we are leaving something behind. That we are withdrawing ourselves from some career or identity or community or phase of life.

Maybe because we’re no longer enjoying ourselves.

Maybe because we have reached our ceiling of satisfaction.

Maybe because we’ve done everything we needed to do here and there’s nothing left for us.

Maybe because the game is stacked against us and it’s time to find one with better odds.

Or maybe because it’s abusive and exhausting and more trouble than it’s worth.

Either way, it will be sad, painful and scary. But it will also be exhilarating. Into the vacuum the great spirits pour. A vast new world of other choices begins to unfold. Reminding us that we are rarely doomed to stick to one set of pathways, unless we think we are.

This source of ancient bliss is available to all of us. We don’t have to be the president of a country or even a company to soak it in.

We simply have to learn to let things go. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
What do you need to retire from?

Parents, teachers, bosses and other authority figures have been giving us the same supposedly sage advice for hundreds of years.

Never make the same mistake twice.

It’s a nice soundbite and a worthwhile goal, but it’s not particularly realistic.

Because let’s face it. Turning a brutally honest eye to the dark truths of the human condition, most people are poor historians. We have short memories, we love learning nothing and not changing, and we trip repeatedly over the same crack in the pavement, more often than we’d like.

How many times have you have made the same mistake two, three and four times? At some point you probably though to yourself, wait, isn’t there supposed a lesson somewhere? Shouldn’t that experience have taught me something?

Homer said it best in one of my favorite episodes:

“Marge, I made a bad mistake and went home to think about what I did. But I don’t remember what that was, so now I’m watching television. “

What if the real victory was not in avoiding making the same mistake twice, but in avoiding beating ourselves each time we did it? Considering just how imperfect we all are, that seems like a more attainable goal.

It reminds me of my short lived career as a basketball player as a kid. During games, anytime time I would throw up an air ball, drop a pass or get the whistle for a foul, curse words would come pouring out of my mouth like fire from a dragon.

Loudly, too. Everyone in the gymnasium could hear it, including my parents watching from the bleachers.

One day at halftime, my dad took me aside into the hallway:

Scott, look, basketball is a tough sport. And you’re doing a great job so far. But yelling the word “shit” every time you make a mistake is a bad habit. It not only reflects poorly on your parents, but it also means you’re being too hard on yourself.

That was thirty years ago, and yet, beating myself up is still a hard habit to break.

Thankfully, the awareness is there. Each day my heart gently reminds me to forgive my own imperfections. As if to whisper to me, hey man, you’re doing the best you can with what you have. It’s okay.

Look, making the same mistakes twice may not be helping our case.

But making ourselves feel bad, low and worthless every time we’re not perfect, that’s not helping either. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Where do you have the hardest time forgiving yourself?

Fritz wrote a morbid but insightful book about leaving our business with our sanity and soul intact.

In the chapter about separating ourselves from our business, he makes a fascinating point about enjoyment:

Most of us who have built businesses aren’t wired for leisure. High achievers seem to need purpose and goals.

That’s why it’s so hard for workaholics to relax. Whatever it is we’re doing, we rarely look up to take it all in. We’re just so serious about it all that we don’t ever enjoy ourselves.

It pays off in the short term for our enterprise, but the downstream effect is that feelings of guilt, fear and pride start to accumulate and trick us into thinking we can successfully ignore our natural hedonic needs.

As if denying ourselves pleasure was a noble crusade.

It’s not. Our wellbeing depends on putting real time and effort into activities that nurture our spirit. Immersing ourselves in personal pleasures and private interests. Each of us should embrace a diverse set of activities that form a complete identity.

Cameron wrote a beautiful book on spiritual satisfaction that is part of my annual reading list. She believes that there is sense of prosperity that can be experienced only when life has some leisure in it, and my spirit would agree.

In fact, we could even take it one step further. If level one is building a life that is rich in activities that are both pleasurable and meaningful, then level two would be advancing and gaining more pleasure from our pastimes.

For the past thirty years, songwriting has become my most cherished, satisfying, joyful and robust creative activity. But not because it costs money, or even earns a lot of money. It’s because I have been intentional about adding new layers of meaning that enhance its basic structure.

Instead of keeping a notebook beside my bed for when inspiration strikes, there are multiple workstations and pieces of technology at my service to work on music anytime, anywhere.

Instead of composing songs inside my head and just keeping them to myself, my music is recorded professionally, shared publicly and performed regularly.

Instead of letting my musical expression fall by the wayside when life gets too chaotic, arduous and confusing, my songs are written during those tough times to metabolize my difficult thoughts, feelings and emotions.

This is how my sanity and soul remain intact. The world of pleasures and delights to play in continually expands and deepens right along with me.

Carlin’s great joke comes to mind. He said that he didn’t have hobbies, since hobbies cost money. He had interests, which were quite free.

It’s the brand of joy available to all of us. And it all starts with permission.

Trusting that rewiring our brands for leisure and pleasure is not a sin, but a basic existential necessity. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
How are your pleasure buttons changing?

Guilt is a term that literally means the willful commission of a crime.

Which is absurd.

Because most of our expressions of guilt are anything but.

And yet, the story we tell ourselves is that we’ve something wrong. Guilt will find countless ways to make us feel like bad people for not complying with other people’s every wish. And the stream of guilt based commentary that starts flowing through our mind sounds like this.

Warning, if you tell your deadbeat asshole roommate to get her shit together, it’s going to create a rift in the relationship that you will never repair.

Warning, if don’t slave away twelve hours a day at the office all week, boss lady is going to kick you to the curb and you will be broke and alone.

Warning, if you don’t drive back and forth around the city in the snow visiting every single family member equally during holiday break, then they’re going to disown you and remove your name from their will.

The result of this psychological battle is, when we’re motivated by guilt, we fail to set necessary boundaries. Our guilt rises and falls according to the level of other people’s disappointment.

Which means our ability to enjoy ourselves will be greatly enabled.

This cycle has to stop.

Pacino says it best when he plays the devil:

Guilt is like a bag of bricks, and all you gotta do is set it down. Who are you carrying all those bricks for anyway?

Listen, part of taking care of our own needs is being willing to watch others bear their own consequences and struggle to take care of theirs.

Eventually, each of us has to forgive ourselves for being human, honor our own requirements, put a stake in the ground and tell someone, well, tough shit.

Otherwise they will continually use our guilt against us to get what they want, leaving us feeling resentful and dissatisfied. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
What joy is guilt keeping your heart from receiving?