Focus on Education: There Is Much To Do Before You Go By: Tony Pellegrino
Almost daily one of you is retiring from government work after reaching the number of required years. For many of you who have labored hard and long especially at a job that you didn’t really enjoy, retirement must be a blessing.
I often wonder what you do after you retire. Do you simply hibernate, or do you do what you have always wanted to do but could not because of family and job restraints? After all how much golf or fishing can you do before becoming bored and burnout with those activities. Do you then seek out other retirees and relate old experiences? Honestly, I don’t know what you do. But I feel there is much that you retirees with a wealth of experiences and history can do to help the youth in the CNMI. You have traveled over the same road that our youth are starting on.
Our young people need close contact with you and hear your life stories along with the achievements and the failures that you have faced. They need hear your wisdom and realize there is hope and a future for them. Their parents are constantly trying to motivate them as are their teachers, but they need to hear the same stories from strangers such as you. As a result the encouragement takes on a new and deeper meaning. With the compassion and wisdom that comes with age, you can help them visualize their dreams.
For a starter, you can call one of the schools in your neighborhood and offer your services. The principal and the teachers will find many exciting things for you to do with the children. For example,one of the functions you can do is help teens search for careers. Many children will decide not to go to a college after high school. You can guide them into seeking suitable employment. Make them understand that whatever job they select doesn’t have to be a permanent one. It can be a learning experience. Advice them that a temporary job may lead them to a greater self-awareness about the importance of education, and they may return to school. Remember you have been there and experienced.
Oh, there is so much you have to offer young people. Two wonderful things will happen. One, you will find a renewed vitality in yourself coupled with a sense of worth; second, the children will welcome you and accept you as a friend.
Parts of a poem by Alfred Tennyson comes to mind when I think of retirees. It is entitled “Ulysses.” The poem based on Homer’s “Ulysses” relates how this great king even after all the wonderful and exciting adventures he had during his lifetime is tired and bored as a retiree:
“I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch where through
Gleams that untraveled world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!”
Thus he decides to seek a new and fresh meaning to his life before it ends:
“We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,–
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
As Ulysses felt, you too have a mission to fulfill before your final curtain. There are many chances to help. Share your experience and knowledge with those that most need it–the youth of the CNMI!
