occupation

According to my good woman, and she’s quoting someone else, three things are the ingredients for happiness: someone to love, something to look forward to, and something meaningful to do. So for me it’s tick, tick, and I’m not sure about the meaningful occupation.

To do something is to be occupied. The be paid to do it makes it your occupation. To my good mother, who thinks my father retired far too early and lost the meaning of life, occupation is everything and joblessness akin to premature death. This from a woman who hasn’t worked since she was 24.

On 1 January I begin this blog in search of and to explore the making of meaning when you’re 60 years old and unemployed. On 1 January I anticipate forced semi-retirement—who will want to employ an eccentric, slightly cynical 60 year-old? I see myself eking out a meagre private income via my business, maybe finding other part-time or casual employment.

I picture myself fully occupied whether business is quiet, employment slow, intermittent or absent. I might not be occupied in the job sense, but certainly in the always having something to do sense. I see myself making meaning by co-existing happily with the earth and my neighbours.

Coming to the end of the year, I’m 61 and overemployed, not enjoying it much. My business is contracted to present six two-day training workshops, five interstate. My three-day a week job with MM is demanding: the travel consumes time and energy; the networking is difficult to establish and maintain from a Collingwood office; and teachers are a demanding and difficult clientele.

On a Saturday morning after a tough week, unrelentingly occupied from the previous Sunday morning when my good woman drives away till seven thirty this Saturday morning when I drop my boxes off in an empty Collingwood business centre, fill the hire car’s tank, drop it off and walk home, I ponder the meaning of it all.

The tables are turned. My busy friend Rock has been at home under doctor’s orders, recovering from ripping a bicep off the bone. A whole term off school, fully paid. He tells me he’s had a better sense of purpose, tending himself and his garden with one arm, letting the world of busyness do its thing without him.

Me? I’m jealous as hell, mind occupied wondering how I achieved my current stress.  

Rock on.