[2021-10-03] Retiring activities
I read a humorous essay in The Globe and Mail this evening by contributor Bill Jermyn. His essay―"I'm not lazy, I'm just retired"―reads like a how-to guide to avoid chores he doesn't want to do.
He begins his essay by sharing one of his favourite cartoons. A wife asks her retired husband what he's doing today. "Nothing," he says. "You did that yesterday," she replies. "I haven't finished yet," he retorts.
Jermyn acknowledges that while once he looked down on laziness as a severe character flaw and believed in the Victorian ethic of hard work as a necessity for salvation, he now embraces laziness. He attributes his newfound acceptance of sloth as a high art form, not to a lack of motivation, but to "a different view of what is important." He explains: "I know what I want to do―not much, in fact―and have begun to use laziness as a shield to avoid what I don't want."
Among the things he avoids are participating in social gatherings, answering the phone ("no friend of mine would call me") and cooking ("While I like food, I see it as a functional necessity rather than something to be worshipped and I have successfully resisted the temptation to get interested").
One of the ways Jermyn has avoided work is by developing the skill to "not do things right." If he forgets to buy items or picks up the wrong thing entirely, can he be trusted to shop? If he doesn't clean the pots and pans properly, can he be trusted to do the dishes? If he employs shortcuts, can he be trusted to do the task?
Jermyn says he recognizes that the chores he is entrusted to do are fairly menial, with little scope for doing them incorrectly. He accepts these responsibilities, he notes, "so long as I can do them in my own time and my own way."
It's difficult to determine whether Jermyn is deliberately failing at the tasks his wife asks him to do so that she won't ask him in the future, or whether she's unfairly critical of his approach when it differs from the way she would do it herself. I suspect that it's a bit of both. But he may also be exaggerating his description of his domestic dynamic for his reader's amusement.
What I liked best in Jermyn's essay is his conclusion: "One of my last steps to combat the anti-laziness movement is to embrace that what other people think of me is none of my business." Not only has Jermyn figured out what is and what isn't important to him, but he's also learned to ignore those who might think less of him for his choices.
There's a lot to be admired in that perspective. It reminds me of something American writer Toni Morrison said in her 80s: she had earned the right to say "no," "shut up" and "get out."
While I wouldn't choose those exact words (though maybe I'll adopt them if I have the privilege of living into my 80s), I do feel―as a survivor of ovarian cancer―that life is too uncertain to spend time doing things I don't want to do and worrying what others think of me.
Unlike Jermyn, however, I do worship food and take great joy in cooking for my pleasure and that of my loved ones. I like doing things for family members to make their lives easier and more comfortable. And I willingly do the hard work of writing a blog post every day in exchange for comments such as "Loved your post last night. Needed that energy."
Jermyn acknowledges that after he retired, it took him some time to get used to not being gainfully employed. It may, therefore, take me some months to eliminate activities that no longer serve me. I'll start a list.
