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Discovering the Golden Years |
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This is the first sunrise of the New Millennium.
Retirement
in History and Literature Since today is the Ides of March, I’m thinking of Julius
Caesar and how he was retired by Brutus and Cassius. Needless to say,
forced retirements can be abrupt, surprising and painful. I’m sure that
Julius thought he would live forever. He also thought that he was beloved
by the citizens and Senators of Rome. He ignored the soothsayer and
continued working when he should have stayed hidden at home under his bed.
The lesson here is that if you don’t have a good plan for retirement,
someone else may take matters into their own hands. Julius had identified
Octavian as his heir, but to get his inheritance Octavian was force to
fight a civil war. Hopefully our wills will be more persuasive and our
children won’t fight over the terms of our wills. Alexander the Great when
asked who would inherit his empire is supposed to have said “The
Strongest”. It turned out that six of his generals were about to come to an
agreement on how they could divide the empire between themselves. There is
some evidence in the historical record that Alexander had in fact killed
his father because he was concerned that his father had taken another wife
who could potentially give birth to a rival prince. Diocletian is on the other extreme, he had a very detailed
plan for how to reorganize the Roman Empire. In 300 AD the empire had
become so large that he proposed that it be divided into two parts and each
half was to be ruled by an emperor who had a deputy emperor called a
Caesar. The Caesars were the heirs to take over when the emperors turned
over power. Diocletian was excited to see how his new plan called
theTetrarchy would work so he retired to the city of Split on the Adriatic
Sea. This maybe where the term “to split” got its origin. He also forced
the other Emperor to retire against his will. Unfortunately the plan failed
because the heirs weren’t satisfied with only “half an empire” and began a
war to determine who would be the ultimate Emperor. I guess this
demonstrates that retirements can be over planned; or perhaps it suggests
that a plan should be flexible enough to handle the tribulations of the
real world. Many people actively integrate their children into their
retirement plan. Historically Ferdinand and Isabella were the most
successful. They planned for their heirs to rule all of Europe. They
proposed to do this through marrying their children to the other crowned
heads of Europe. And they were very successful ultimately their grandson
Charles V became the Holy Roman Emperor. He was able to spend the great
fortune that the Spanish brought back from the new world in a long series
of wars between various European and Middle Eastern factions. Ultimately he ran out of energy and
money and retired to the monastic life. If he had done that at an earlier
stage in life he would have saved the lives of ten million people and many
billions of dollars. I guess this is an argument for early retirement. It
suggests that if you stay on the job too long it can cause great grief to
many people and be very expensive. On the other hand King Lear had a plan for early retirement.
He wanted to step aside and turn over his Kingdom to one of his three
daughters. However he had trouble deciding which daughter was the most
deserving. And he had trouble deciding which daughter loved him the most.
Or actually if any of them really loved him at all or if they just loved
the idea of taking over his kingdom. The fact that his daughters were heirs
to the kingdom also complicated their lives because they attracted men who
were really more interested in being king then in a marriage of love. Once
Lear retired he lamented the loss of power. He felt that he was no longer
loved. The situation played on his mind to the degree that he ended up as a
ragged beggar ranting and raving in the rain. |
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