Achievement versus Fulfillment

In my last post, I complained about the curse of having to be “productive”, as measured by that internalized judge of myself, which I will call my conscience.  As a working physician, I could look back on a week and count lives that may have been changed by my actions…well, more likely my billed RVUs: Relative Value Units – the accounting measure of a physician’s productivity, essentially how many patients I saw, procedures I did, consults I provided.  As a researcher, I could look at my grants, presentations, manuscripts, and data analyzed.  As an administrator, I could look at meetings run, memos created, policies altered.  What is the measure of my productivity – my worth – now? 

The retirement/reinvention books state that I need to change from focusing on “achievement” to pursuing “happiness and fulfillment”. 

According to the dictionary in Word, achievement is defined as “something that somebody has succeeded in doing, usually with effort; social status gained through personal merit”. 

In the free online dictionary, fulfillment is defined as “a feeling of satisfaction at having achieved your desires; the contentment one feels when one has fulfilled a desire, need, or expectation.” 

At first glance, it appears that you get fulfillment by having achieved something or lived up to expectations.  However, the construct meant by “fulfillment” in these books is that you are living up to your own expectations, not those of others.  And to do this, you first have to have knowledge about yourself, and the gumption to seek out those activities that “float your boat”, “put you in the flow”, that provide you with your own sense of self-approval and self-esteem.  

This is more difficult than you think.  Those of us successful enough to retire are very conditioned to judge ourselves according to the measures of our supervisor(s) or other external judges of our output.  That’s how we were successful in the first place.  We seek external confirmation of our worth.  To change to getting that only from within oneself is not straightforward or simple.  In addition to providing our own structure for the day, we also need to create our own internal measures by which we derive self-esteem.  I’m not there yet, but having articulated this problem, I have a start.

Today I did something that I would not have done two months ago.  I took a 5.6 mile walk through the rural roads near our home during a normal work day.  The farm land and hills of late summer were picturesque; people I have never met waved to me; a blue heron suddenly flew out of the rushes as I walked by; the Vermont Cookie Love owner greeted me with a smile of recognition.  I “achieved” practically nothing (except some additional training for backpacking – an excuse to do this), but I felt a sense of “fulfillment” in having taken the time to observe the beautiful surroundings and living creatures of Vermont.  Who knows how long one has to take in such beauty?