Shall I Retire?

I AM in the late forties; I am married and have two children, two moderate-priced motor cars, and a comfortable home in the semi-country a few miles from one of the largest cities in North America. My private income from conservative investments is about $2000 per year. In my business I earn an average of $6000 annually, while my wife receives something over $10,000 each year from her estate. The total, therefore, we will say, is $18,000.

Our expenses are the usual ones common to the typical American family — taxes, mortgage interest, wages, schools, clubs, contributions, amusements, and the general upkeep of a family of four. We dress very well, and entertain better and oftener than the average (we are told). We save next to nothing.

Each and every morning, after an early and hurried breakfast, during which takes place a hectic discussion relative to the most satisfactory methods of transportation to our respective destinations, 1 conclude to walk (or run) to the station, while the children are motored in great haste to another station or direct to schools (private). I take a seat in the train beside another ‘business man’ and appear as happy, important, and conventional as possible while I read my morning paper. It is vital that I turn eagerly to the financial page, because everybody else does. I am then submerged in a seething mass of human protoplasm which presently scatters itself to every conceivable comer of this North American city. And the fight is on.

In a close, steam-heated office my day is given over to frantic pursuits which involve the dictation of letters, telephoning, calculations, and discussions. Both within the office and without, the noise is constant, the movement continual — and the fight eternal. When the formality of the day’s routine is over, I rush homeward by another route, having learned by telephone that I am to entrain and be met, or extract a car from some distant garage, or linger on a windy street corner to be collected by my wife or someone. Finally I reach home. I am tired, nervous, depleted, almost unclean. It is difficult to be agreeable. Casual conversation irritates me. My remarks annoy the family. I am useless, a burden, a poor investment. Sometimes a bath or a cocktail or both revivify me for a time, but usually, with great effort, I pull myself together and go in to dinner, resorting to neither. If the evening is to be spent at home, it is sure to be a brief one. If we ‘go out,’ I pray for decided inspiration or wild excitement. And, in either case, tomorrow I pay. My home is bulging with dusty books; my musical instruments are stored in the attic; my pen is used to write checks; my garden is full of weeds, and the thrushes come and go before I know it. ‘The world is too much with us.’

On that fatal morning, some twenty years ago, when I embarked on the turbulent stream of business apprenticeship, I felt an indescribable sensation of reluctance. I was conscious, somehow, of taking the wrong step. My evenings, for the most part, were spent in studious pursuits removed as far as possible from the sphere of the business I was entering — or any business, for that matter. But there was the fine opening for the young man, and I was persuaded to fill it. And now, after nearly a quarter of a century of business endeavor, I show earning power of $6000 per year! Good proof in itself that I am no business man!

Several college contemporaries of mine are farmers, naturalists, psychologists, and the like — and I am sure that they would have limped helplessly into the arena of business life and out if they had not shown the courage of their convictions. Their talents, with which they are peculiarly blessed, are nurtured and caused to flourish. They appear happy, calm, healthy, hardworking, and successfid — and earn little or nothing. They are well able to avoid the madding crowd — and likewise am I, and you perhaps.

Among my acquaintances is a man, ten years my junior, who receives from his inherited estate an annual income of $20,000, I should judge. (The exact figure, of course, I don’t know, for if there is one secret which is assiduously kept sacred, it is the extent of one’s wealth.) In his business he too earns about $6000. (This I happen to know.) He could readily retire — more readily than I. But he won’t, — at least until infirmity overtakes him, — because he has no outside interests. All his eggs are in one basket. He would be like a fish out of water. He is happy — and let him stay where he is. Our cases are not similar.

If the college undergraduate whose open letter to his Alma Mater appeared recently on the front pages of several daily papers was sincere in saying, ‘I have existed in your civilization now for twenty years. I have existed merely as a spectator. You have forced me to do certain things and I have done them — reluctantly, always inwardly rebelling. Now I have decided to give expression to my nature and to try whether it be possible to live humanely,’ I heartily sympathize with him, though we must consider his subsequent action a little drastic. His rebellious attitude is splendid. He apparently is not intended for the struggling activities of this world.

If release is possible, it is difficult for me to believe that a man should cling to the apron strings of a business in which he is not in the slightest interested. He continues to cling, perhaps, for protection, and to avoid ridicule, for if he lets go at middle age or before (provided he is in good health and in possession of his faculties) he is forthwith considered a loafer or rich — and perhaps is neither. Nor can I believe it. is fair and fitting that his natural aptitudes should be continually cramped and crippled; that his lifelong effort must be in pursuit of something he really does n’t need or want; that he should be prohibited, so to speak, from satisfying his precious interests; that he should be forced to associate with people not of his own choosing, people who are perhaps uncongenial.

Sometimes I liken myself unto the reckless driver, who crowds his car between and past others and races along the public highways at a cruel speed, and who is sure to injure himself and his vehicle sooner or later. And unless he slows down he will one day die at the wheel. I am not fond enough of reckless driving to jeopardize my whole existence. The pace is too rapid for safety.

Why should I be made to take a violent interest in the policies of the Nippifling Oil and Supply Corporation of Arkansas when the whole idea of the thing appeals to me not in the least.-’ What difference does it make to me if the Farmers’ Mortgage Trust and Loan Company is inclined to rearrange its stock and ‘give four for one’? There are plenty of people who delight in following these fascinating interests. Let them ‘strain and sweat’ over the ticker. Some eager broker or my trustee can well look after my diminutive affairs. I prefer to give my time and energy to other matters.

Somehow I don’t feel ashamed to record frankly that business as I know it — business for its own sake — is continually an exasperation to me. It all seems commonplace, impersonal. There is no chance for a man to show his own propensities, his personality, his sold. Our inveterate men of business use the same terms in conversation, keep the same office hours, cat with each other at lunch clubs, think the same commercial thoughts, and even smoke with the same mannerisms.

If a traveling salesman ever again offers me a cigar and asks, ‘What is your line?’ — I think I shall scream. A stockbroker, a merchant, a clerk, an automobile salesman, I can invariably spot. And I can also spot a naturalist and an artist!

The first question asked among men in reference to a passing individual is, ‘What does he do?’—which means, ‘What business is he in?’ That is the vital point! There is little or no interest in knowing anything concerning his personal qualities. Whether he is a scholar, a botanist, or an Episcopalian is of little consequence. On our tax returns and legal questionnaires in general we arc required at the outset to state address of home and address of business. It is evidently taken for granted that we maintain both, and sometimes by the documentary phrasing I wonder whether both may be obligatory. More than once I have been tempted to fill in the second space with the words, ‘My business address is the Maine Woods.’

I don’t mean to be critically cynical in these observations. The position I take is indeed a serious one. I am fully aware of the importance of continuous business in all its intricate departments. It is certain that someone must attend to these jobs. There is no dearth of laborers — and pay in plenty for the competent and earnest ones. Schools and colleges annually turn out hordes of trained workers intent on business careers. They doubtless love their work and the money they make. Splendid. They are welcome to both. I am interested in neither. And I have no right to occupy space that could be filled by someone who would be happier and more successful than I.

If, then, I step bravely to the side lines of this business game, instead of $18,000 we have $12,000 a year. And if we save nothing on eighteen thousand, it’s not likely we can on twelve. But for the time being I am not treating of the accumulation of wealth. Do I need two servants and two cars and four clubs? Do my children need to go to expensive schools? Do I need to entertain so well and so often? At all events, it now appears that we Americans are swept on, unconsciously perhaps, by this conventional current. It is evidently not customary to drift calmly aside into still waters. We are doing the traditional thing. We are pretending. We are afraid to slow down. We don’t dare to resign.

My reading, my music, my writing, and my study of nature are investment securities which I have sold each year for a mere $6000. Public opinion gave me to understand that I should be happier and better off if I parted with these interests for cash. The cash has come in handy, to be sure, but think of what I have been made to forfeit! These investments were invaluable. Someone has said, ‘Life consists in what a man is thinking all day.’ Through all the distasteful routine of the office, if my thoughts continually turn to a poem, a melody, a fancy, a thrush, then my business is not my life. I am acting one role and living another.

‘When my time comes, I want to die in the harness,’ I have heard active, hard-working people remark.

It seems a pretty and courageous declaration — but if the harness has irritated for nearly twenty-five years, who wants to die in it?