when should I retire?

The walk was a success. I am now ready to tackle question #1: When should I retire?

This has turned out to be the most difficult question of all. And, of course, all the other decisions I will make follow from this one.

Some background may help. Retirement is as exotic to me as yak cheese. I have never thought about it for myself and I have not encountered many people who have done it. During my early childhood, I grew up in a logging town in southern Oregon. Everyone I knew worked in the woods. And they worked there until they died or were too infirm to work anymore.

In the last few years, I have watched several people retire only to take up a full-time job somewhere else. I can look around Salem and see attorneys in their 70s and 80s. I have long suspected that due to the years it took to get through school and get to the heights of our careers, we attorneys do not want to give up helping people solve problems. And, yes, there is the prestige of being called an attorney.

I thoroughly enjoy my job. It is challenging; I am given an incredible amount of professional autonomy; and my colleagues appreciate my work. I am literally sitting at the top of my career – and it could get better.

I am as happy as I have ever been in my life outside of my job, as well. I have developed an extremely comfortable routine. Each Sunday, I teach an adult Sunday school class at the Salvation Army. My students are interested and engaged – and their questions are always challenging. On Sunday evenings I assist with a learn and play time with children at the Salvation Army shelter. I am also the chair of the local Salvation Army advisory board. That entails several meetings each month. On Wednesdays, I have a small group Bible study at my house. One day a month, I attend our neighborhood association meeting. And I am a season subscriber to a local theater group – with productions about once a month on Friday evenings.

Each night I eat my dinner in my hot tub trying to catch up on several magazines. In addition, I try to read at least one book a week – on nearly every subject.

Walks with the dog in the evening. Dinner with friends. It has turned out to be about the right mix for me – and just when I have the proper balance (I struck politics from the list several years ago), I am ready to toss it all out by retiring.

Like all dog owners, if I only listened more to my dog I would be far wiser. On our walk this afternoon, Jiggs insisted on taking a course we have never walked in the last 12 years. We both got to see things and people we would have never seen on our usual walk.

Dogs are creatures of habit; golden retrievers are the epitome of compulsive obsessives. Who knows why he chose the new path? What I know is he provided me with a very helpful metaphor.

The reason I need to retire is that I am too comfortable in my current life. Leaving my job in the near future will let me leave while I am still on top of my career. I do not want to stick around long enough to overhear someone say: “Oh, that’s Steve Cotton. He used to be a good attorney. Years before I got here.” – assuming I could still hear the comment.

All I look for is a waking up facing new adventures each morning. Mexico, because it is close. But the adventure could come from anywhere. All I know is I have a date in mind, and it will be the correct decision.