WHAT NEXT?

What next?

This is the question that I am confronted with, on a daily basis ever since I have received my retirement order. Each and every person I meet or who has known me for some time, comes up with this question as soon as they come to know that I am retiring.

In the beginning, my reply was always, that I haven’t decided. To the very close ones I replied that, I am working on it. When it all began, it was just a question, like any other. As time pass by, the frequency seems to increase and the sincerity with which it is asked is also evident. This matter has assumed serious proportions and needs to be addressed with all the seriousness it deserves. Once this question is posed, it is not uncommon for my well-wishers to offer their advice without waiting for my answer. I am often advised to search for new jobs that fit my status and standing, or those jobs which give me a high on my esteem front. They somehow feel that I must continue to work. I have been instructed to widen the avenues of my search, advertise my qualifications, re-write my credentials the way market understands it and even activate the right link to get the right job.

All the well-meaning advice come with a caution. I’m warned that sitting at home, doing nothing will kill me. They tell me of people, who were seemingly hale and hearty having decided to take it easy after retirement, died out of boredom. Though I try hard to hide my fears, there are times I do get scared. I assure my well-wishers was so worried about me that I have no plans to sit at home and wither away.

My wife, hearing all those scary stories of how people disintegrated after retirement, is worried for me. She tells me, that the active the person that I am, I will not be able to tolerate the inactivity associated with retired life. She warns me of the boredom that sets in after some time and how it can kill. She’s truly worried. She has been with me in my life’s journey or the last 30 years. She has been with me in my good times and bad times. I appreciate her concern but still want to pursue what my heart tells me. My wife and our friends ask me, what next?

This question, has a sense of uncertainty inherent to it and to some extent unsettles me. Spending some time at home, reading and writing or just being lazy, is not inactivity. I’m sure this cannot be the way that I will wither away. Having worked for more than 36 years. I feel I have earned a well-deserved rest and a peaceful walk to the sunset pursuing those hobbies which I always wanted to. I want to spend some time finally for myself.

Is it the first time that I’m faced with this question? No. Right from the day of my birth “what next?“ has been a constant companion in my life. There were times when I had no answers, there were times when the answers, I chose were wrong and few instances the choices were right.

What next? This would have been the question my grandma asked herself seeing a seven-month-old premature baby, delivered at home with no access to modern medicine. My very survival was in question. I had no control of what was happening with me. My childhood was filled with stories of how hard, grandma prayed and how she never gave up on me. I’ve come to believe that I survived on my grandma’s prayers and the liquid diet that her frail old little finger could manage to push inside my little mouth. I survived.  It would be more truthful to say she managed to make me survive. “What next?” might have been a question that troubled her. To me it didn’t matter, at least as of now.

Many years later, as an adolescent, having failed my father in achieving the grades that he wanted me to, my own sense of esteem having bitten dust, with my life seemingly going nowhere I asked myself “what next?”.

]With no sign of hope in the near horizon, I came to the conclusion that life is not worth living. The question that troubled me was “what next?”. That is when I toyed with the idea of putting an end to my life. The walk to the railroad, the purposeless walk between the tracks and the final wait at the track for the train still remains the most excruciating pain I ever suffered. I sat and cried aware of the life that I wasted, going through each of my dreams that had not been fulfilled and the gruesome fate that was just moments away. This seemed to be the final answer to the un-ending question “what next?“ . The train was unduly late that day and I could not sit there for eternity. I had to walk off. 

Another failure? I asked myself “what next?”.

That is the day I took control of my life. No I tried to take control of my life.

The next few years I experimented with my body and soul. There were times when I was confronted with my worthlessness. The path I often took led me nowhere. I was confronted with failure after failure after failure. At the end of it I asked again, what next?

Events, people and surroundings always have a say on the outcome of what one does. The extent to which external forces can control one’s life depends upon how much control one gives to others. Unwittingly, unknowingly one does give control of one’s life to others. The choice of handling others’ lives in our hands do not come with much responsibility. It’s up to us to decide how well or how shoddy we can handle somebody else’s lives. It doesn’t matter actually. But the person who has entrusted his or her life into our hands desires that we handle it with utmost care. Often entrusting our lives to somebody ends in disaster. Living up to others dreams and their aspirations to actually divest one from one’s own life and the beauty associated with it. Driven by the norms of the society parents end up robbing childhood of children. If one is sensitive even adolescence is wasted living somebody’s dreams. Having secured selection in a number of competitive examinations I found myself choosing what I had not thought of. The choice was mine but reasons were not from the heart.

It’s been years now. I refuse to let anybody else control my life. I am still learning to preserve my personal space. The years that have passed by have gifted me with unparalleled happiness, though there were challenges aplenty. The most beautiful lady on earth became my wife. The two most beautiful girls in this world are my daughters. The two most handsome men in this world are my sons-in-law, the most adorable children on the earth are my grandchildren. I have nothing more to ask for. I have got everything that I’ve dreamt of, got more than what I deserved and more than what I bargained for. The last 30 years have been the most beautiful years of the life. Yet, there were times when I sat down and asked “what next?”

Looking back, the questions that I asked each significant turning point of my life seems irrelevant and meaningless. My experience of the last 57 years, makes me believe that each time I asked this question, it was irrelevant and stemmed from my insecurity. Now I know that my job is to celebrate each day of my life. I consider each tribulation as a lesson and step towards triumph. I also learned that the day I took control of my life I started living. I have no regrets whatsoever for what I have done and for that matter even for those that I have not done.

Tomorrow doesn’t worry me. I propose to live my life each day with the hope of finding something amusing each day, spreading happiness each moment, to hug someone who needs it, to reach out to somebody’s outstretched hand and maybe teach someone to answer the question that plagued me all through my life, “what next?”

What’s next? Live life.