Neo:Sage

In my somewhat extended transition towards a better planned retirement, I have established a brief with two primary objectives. Firstly, I aim to preserve the strengths, knowledge, skills, and general wisdom accumulated over more than six decades of life experience and overcoming various challenges. Secondly, I intend to avoid adopting a nostalgic perspective that negatively compares the present and future with potentially idealized memories of the past.

In effect this means combining the ability to keep up with current developments and cultural changes, while leveraging the benefits of experience. In that light I’ve decided to give this approach a title – NeoSage. It’s not new I’m sure but it makes it easier for me going forward to discuss my approach and evaluate its effectiveness without using lengthy explanations.

There are two key elements to this approach – cultivating sageness and being neo.

Cultivating Sageness – Being More Yoda

I’ve chosen to use the word Sage to represent all the strengths, knowledge, skills and wisdom that experience offers over a lifetime of being a manager, educator, spouse, parent, grandparent and navigator of the river of life.

Or as I like to refer to it – being more Yoda. When I mentioned that term to someone recently, they laughed out loud and said the image that came to them was of the Buddha. I assume given my present physique they were referring to Hotei or the laughing buddha, either way I’m happy with either comparison.

This part of the plan encompasses the notion of keeping the mental resources I’ve built up sharp enough to be of use to others if needed. Also, to ensure my brain doesn’t deteriorate through lack of use.

To do this I’ve had to contemplate what the various contributing factors to “sageness” might be. I identified them as follows –

Strengths

I’ve identified self-awareness and a broad perspective as the two strengths most relevant to developing a NeoSage approach to life post-retirement.

I need to maintain a keen sense of self-awareness. This will require me to remain mindful, through self-reflection, of my emotions and values, and how they influence my personal interactions and general behaviour.

A broad worldview or perspective is built up over time through constant exposure to other lives, cultures, and belief systems – whether political, religious or philosophical. Thankfully a reasonably well-developed sense of empathy and never-ending curiosity has stood me in good stead most of my adult life. As an educator and later a manager in further education, I’ve benefited from a lot of exposure to a huge variety of people and I’m very grateful for all that they’ve taught me about how the world looks through their eyes.

Key to the success of my NeoSage plan is to maintain that level of a broad worldview when my contact with people has reduced considerably.

Knowledge

I’ve always viewed knowledge as a two-lane highway that carries you on your journey through life. One lane is the knowledge you gather through personal experience and the other lane is the knowledge that you gain through exposure to other people’s experiences and teachings.

In addition to making efforts to continue to curate the knowledge I’ve gained, and to ensure I proactively seek new knowledge, I must ensure I remain “knowledge-able”. By that I mean it’s not good enough to be a human hard drive gathering knowledge (data), but I must be able to use the knowledge in a positive way for the betterment of my family and community.

Skills

Ironically, I think I’d find it harder to identify my skills than to brainstorm a list of any other kind. I remember reading once that this can happen once skills transition from conscious competence to unconscious competence, and I’m going to fall back on that explanation to get myself out of an exercise that would be of little benefit for this purpose.

The skill I am very aware I must keep sharpened though is – judgement.

To me judgement as a skill, comprises of the ability to make informed decisions through critical thinking. It utilises knowledge and understanding to identify key information and objectively analyse and evaluate it to form a valid opinion, and where necessary act upon it.

Why is this so important as part of my NeoSage development? Because finding accurate information is a challenge in this new technologically driven age. Terabytes of data is now available to everybody with a device and an internet connection, but sadly through ignorance and nefarious aims, most of that data is either inaccurate or downright twisted. I must ensure I don’t form opinions and make judgements based on misinformation.

Being Neo

Relax I haven’t developed a messiah complex in my old age. I don’t mean the mysterious character played by Keanu Reeves in The Matrix movies, I’m referring to the prefix meaning “new” or “current”.

When it comes to being NeoSage this element can be defined through a series of characteristics – Connection, Communication, Collaboration, and Forward Motion.

Connection

A feature of post-retirement life is a drastic reduction in human interaction due to the absence of work colleagues and others that were part of your life due to your career. In some instances this is a blessing (okay maybe that’s just me), but for many it is the start of a slippery slide into isolation.

A byproduct of this is the absence of shared experiences and knowledge that all these people would have contributed towards the enrichment of your life. Many retired people counteract this by joining groups or volunteering in their community. Unfortunately, for people like me, they’re not viable options. Therefore, connection inevitably falls back on family, and in the modern age – the internet.

Either way the key takeaway as far as NeoSage is concerned is to make every effort to maintain genuine connection with the outside world, through whatever means suits you the best.

Communication

Closely related to connection is communication. Not simply interacting (small talk comes to mind here and I can feel my energy levels drop immediately), but actually sharing information, knowledge, emotions, ideas, plans, and other creative endeavours.

Communication for a purpose and for the improvement of daily life. The challenge here for me will be to differentiate between doom scrolling social media accounts and trading “comments”, from communicating in a meaningful way with genuine human beings.

Collaboration

Ironically at a point in life when personal interaction can decrease, collaboration is the most impactful way for me to achieve all the things I set out in the Sage section above. Genuine collaboration is the most efficient way to achieve common goals, share knowledge and skills, be efficient and effective, and enhance achievements.

Thankfully the proliferation of online platforms where people can connect and communicate has probably made collaboration much easier than it would have been 10 or 15 years ago even. My challenge is to stay on top of this technology to better leverage my opportunities for collaboration on the projects that matter to me.

And if I’m being honest to counteract my introverted nature.

New Tech Aware

When I was still carrying the yoke of employment – or working for a living as we used to say – I was very tech aware. An early adopter of new technology and proficient in the use of a wide range of software, I usually ended up supporting my colleagues and family members with their use of devices and navigating the problems of various software packages. Everybody got great fun out of ribbing me for being a tech nerd (while asking for help usually) and no amount of saying I only use it for work would satisfy them.

Recently I noticed I was still using a seven-year-old MacBook Air and an iPhone XR I acquired through one of my daughter’s upgrades. Maybe that would convince people that my tech knowledge was entirely work related. That of course must be addressed if NeoSage is to be a reality.

I must catch up, and more importantly stay current, in relation to hardware, software, social media and other platforms, AI, and anything else that might impact on my life or the life of my family and community. In other words, I need to toggle on my own Constant Background Refresh option.

And Finally…

Now that I’ve set out my NeoSage agenda it only remains for me to start the ball rolling. Wish me luck and I’ll keep you posted (maybe).