“Life’s tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late.”
Benjamin Franklin
Without a doubt, the most challenging part in transitioning is fighting a feeling that you no longer matter, that you are becoming invisible. In my case, while I do not think I fell into any severe depression, at times, I was close. As much as I knew that what I do matters, fear of becoming irrelevant is an unavoidable and unsettling emotion.
As my plan unfolded, by definition, I lost control. I was no longer in charge of the bulk of my former clients. I was no longer consulted on issues. I did not prepare many bills. I did not go to meetings. I was no longer leveraging relationships with the moved clients to build more business.
All those responsibilities were now in the hands of the new lead attorneys. For the plan to work, that was how it had to be. The new attorneys needed to be in control. In that process, however, I learned that letting go is easier said than done. You feel a real void. For over 40 years, I built relationships with clients worldwide. Now, on a personal level, I was ending them.
As I moved clients and moved forward with the plan, a strange sense of mortality set in. It was not unsettling, per se. Until I faced the logical end to my plan, mortality was something too distant to care about. While morbid, it is an issue we all eventually face. For some, facing mortality happens when they see their friends passing. For others, it is more severe through misfortune or illness. For me, it was the realization that I was making other people more prosperous and more important than me in the relationships I created. But I knew that at some point, I would become nothing more than a memory for those clients. It’s inevitable. That’s a lot for anyone with an ego like mine to swallow in one bite! It is like a parent taking their child to a neighbor to babysit and never seeing them again.
I dealt with it by talking to friends and colleagues in similar situations. We all know transition in one form or another is inevitable. I chose to do so through a plan rather than letting it happen independently. While I think what I have done is best for others and myself, lawyers (like me) do not turn off a switch and become retirees so quickly.
Do you have a plan to deal with the inevitable emotional challenges, or are you so confident in yourself that you do not need to worry about them? Perhaps you plan to just face them as they come. If that is your direction, I hope it works, but is it not silly to bet on the luck of the draw in an unpredictable future? As a character in the TV series CSI: Hawai’i said, “Luck is a human construct designed to give meaning to random acts of chance, and in turn, comfort us in a universe that is inherently chaotic.” I did not depend on luck.
