“Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children.” - Khalil Gibran

Over the past week, I’ve had the delightful opportunity to spend time with some young friends who were visiting us from Canada and one of the topics of our conversation was how I intended to spend my time once I retire. I’d come home from work to hear wonderful stories of their adventures seeing San Francisco, Yosemite and Sequoia National Park for the first time and this lead to some discussions of the volunteer work I have done in Yosemite for more than 25 years.

My friends assumed, correctly, that one of the most important things for me in retirement would be to continue to make a difference. We talked about my interest in doing more volunteer work in the national parks and working to help children and adults learn to read. We also talked about some very social activities, like making music with friends, and some more solitary and contemplative pursuits like writing and composing. I hope to spend a fair amount of time on creative pursuits like woodworking, art, and blacksmithing, too.

Conversations like these always seem to help me as I prepare for retirement and I appreciate that friends have an interest in what will come next for me. Now that our friends have begun their journey home, I find myself thinking about our conversations and about the stages of life we all experience. I listened to them and remembered earlier stages of my life and I imagine they listened to me, and listen to their parents, and think about the changes they will some day experience when they are my age.

All of this reminds me today of a Hindu way of describing the stages of life that has seemed very useful to me since I first encountered it some forty years ago. While I don’t pretend to have a deep understanding of Hindu belief or philosophy, and while I am sure I would not agree with all of the teachings in texts like the  Manusmṛti that provides one of the earliest descriptions of this system

the simple idea that there are a four clear stages to life, and four key goals, has been interesting and helpful to me for many years.

The Ashram system describes four Ashrama, or stages, of life: Brahmacharya (student life), Grihastha (household life), Vanaprastha (retired life), and Sannyasa (renounced life). As a student, the young person is in a stage of life focused on learning, practicing self-discipline and learning to live in the right way. I remember this part of my life and appreciate my parents, teachers and friends who helped me learn and grow. As a householder, a person spends their time and energy enjoying family life, attending to their duties to their family and society, and working to earn a living. The householder also takes responsibility for children, students, and elders.

As I prepare to move from that stage of my life when I have primarily been a householder and to enter retirement, I am grateful to my family and friends for the rich and rewarding experiences I have had as a father, an uncle and great-uncle, a worker, a boss, and especially a spouse and a friend. I’m glad that I’ve had the chance to work to provide for my family! I’m also very glad that my roles as spouse, father, uncle, great-uncle and friend will continue in retirement. I’m ready to let go of being worker and boss and hope to one day be a grandfather, too.

In the Ashram system, the retired life allows a person to gradually withdraw from the world, freely share their wisdom with others and prepare for the final stage of life. For my part, I hope, and expect that the process of withdrawal will be very slow and gradual. While I am ready to set aside the duties of my profession, there are many new things I look forward to engaging in with my time and energy and I am especially looking forward to having more time with my loved ones.

Some day, I imagine I will be ready for something akin to sannyasa when I will focus more and more on leaving this world in the best way. While I have watched some who have gone before me live through this stage of life, I have much to learn before I will understand it better. I hope I will have many years to do that learning.

In these Hindu teachings, a life lived in this way helps a person fulfill four key aims: Dharma (living in the right way), Artha (meaning and purpose), Kama (the aesthetic enjoyment of life, love, and emotional fulfillment), and Moksha (liberation, freedom, self-realization and self-knowledge). If I were to live a life that allowed me to find, and balance, these things, I’m certain that would be a life very well lived!

As I prepare to move to the next stage of my life, there is work I look forward to doing that I will be more free to do by not having to earn a living. In addition to volunteering in the parks and for literacy, I’d like to work for gender equity, climate change and sustainability to help ensure that all our children, grandchildren, and their children and grandchildren, live in a world better than the one we inherited from our parents. These are ambitious goals I’d have to pursue with a certain amount of faith as we will surely not live to see all the results of our efforts.

I also look forward to more time with nature, hiking and stargazing, to more meditation, music, laughter, love, and quiet times with family and friends. I’ll be preparing over the next 22 months. I know I have so much to learn and I’m sure there will be challenges and surprises in this new stage of life. I’m pretty sure I’ll be ready for those!