“Hope for the best, expect the worst” is the title of a song written by Mel Brooks for his movie The Twelve Chairs.
This phrase popped into my head after I spoke with someone who is about to begin retirement. While he has completed his financial planning and thought about potential activities and projects, he still sits on the precipice of the experience.
I think this expression, or song title, is appropriate because this person has never retired before. It’s all new. The impact of the change hasn’t hit him yet. I told him to expect some discomfort, to feel weird, untethered, disconnected, uncomfortable, and generally discombobulated.
A shift of this magnitude is naturally going to cause upheaval. But that said, it’s temporary if one recognizes that it’s all part of a greater picture. It’s a reshuffling of the deck, a disassembling and reassembling of a million LEGO pieces into an incredible city. It’s atoms being smashed and then fused into something new.
In other words, change brings pain, to varying degrees. The quicker you can navigate it, the sooner you can move forward. But that doesn’t mean you won’t feel the heat.
Don’t worry, you’ve got this!
