What will I do with the rest of my life?

What will I do with the rest of my life? People looking forward to retirement often have idealized pictures of what it will be like: after a lifetime of work, with all its stresses, we dream of a hammock under a palm tree near the ocean or travel to exotic places. Rest is surely deserved after so many years of work. But ultimately we have to ask, what will I do now, one of life’s truly existential questions. The past is history beyond our power to change; regardless of how old we may be, the only thing we can control is what lies ahead. Two wonderful examples come to mind: Mother Teresa, who devoted her life to working with the poorest of the poor, “the least of these my brethren.” The other is my personal hero, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for his struggle against apartheid. He later became the model of forgiveness as chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a man who has known great suffering and who is capable of great joy. But living well is not always so easy for people who are old. What will Pope Benedict, by his own admission frail and tired, do at Castle Gondolfo? Or there is the case of a friend of mine, now in an assisted living facility, who says he gets most depressed in the morning, thinking nothing lies ahead in the day but sitting in a chair, watching TV or reading. When I retired at age 76, I resolved I’d keep myself busy volunteering. So for five years I taught ESL, Mondays and Wednesdays at our day labor center (now closed) and Saturdays at our local human resources center. All of my students were Latino immigrants, wonderful people whom I loved working with. I also volunteered at our local homeless shelter giving me the reward of working with another group of great people. Saturday evenings I ushered at George Mason University Center for the Arts. I got to sit in on half of the concerts while getting to know my fellow ushers. Why was volunteering important? I was doing it because I wanted to, not for pay. It was great to have everybody smiling and laughing and enjoying learning a new language. By chance three of our students lived next door to us and you can imagine how happy I was to get a bear hug from a student I met at the grocery store. It was also a revelation to get to know homeless people as people and to listen as a friend to their stories. But after five years I had to admit that I was no longer up to these activities. So all I do regularly is go to the gym in the morning and to church on Sundays. Thank God for my family and my church, but I’m still looking to improve the quality of my life and surely that’s why I’ve taken to writing this blog.