Back in 2016, one of the consultants who came to our
workplace every quarter was in for the day. He and I got to talking about how
long each of us had worked for our current employer. For me, I would soon be
starting my 40th year working for the same hospital organization I
started with in 1976. He too had worked a long time for his consulting group. I
asked him how much longer he was going to work before he retired and he reached
in his pocket and got out his smart phone and showed me an “app” that he had
downloaded. It was a countdown app.
Some time back he had decided what day he
was going to retire and had entered that date in the app and it began a
countdown, showing the days, hours, minutes and seconds until his retirement
date arrived. I don’t remember the exact number of days on his countdown clock
but it was less than a year. I kept thinking about that over the following days
and since I’ve always liked playing with numbers, I decided to download the app
onto my phone. I entered what I thought my retirement day would be and the app
clock showed right at 1000 days until that day.
Holy cow, 1000 days seemed like
a lot, and it was, but either way, the countdown began.
Not every day, but
every once in awhile, I would open the app and see that I had reached a new
milestone…now it’s under 900 days…now it’s less than 2 years. Some days and
weeks and months seemed to take so long to pass…but they continued to pass none
the less. Before I knew it…it was less than a year…then it was under a 100
days…then a month…then into single digits. On that last day of work, the app was
counting down the hours left…and suddenly…like I passed through a time machine…it
was at 0 and I was clocking out for the last time.
Some months after
retirement, I was looking at my phone and realized I had not deleted that
countdown app and saw that it was still keeping count of the days…but this
time, it was the number of days, hours, minutes and seconds SINCE I had
retired. So I just kept the app and occasionally would look in amazement to see
it had been THAT LONG since I had retired.
Tomorrow, ironically…it will be 1000
days SINCE I retired. I started the countdown to retirement with 1000 days to
go, and now I’ve been retired for 1000 days. Like it or not, 2000 days have
passed since I first started the countdown.
Time indeed flies by…faster than
you think.
REMEMBER: We act like we are going to live forever but we don’t. We
think we won’t get old but then we do. Life is short. Enjoy the ride. Make the
most of each day.
Be talkin’ to ya.
Dan
