{"id":2064,"date":"2016-08-07T04:45:33","date_gmt":"2016-08-07T11:45:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mikebellah.com\/wordpress\/?p=2064"},"modified":"2016-08-07T04:45:33","modified_gmt":"2016-08-07T11:45:33","slug":"keeping-it-real","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/?p=2064","title":{"rendered":"Keeping It Real"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I\u2019ve always tried to be honest with readers. Nonfiction guru Lee Gutkind calls it \u201ckeeping it real.\u201d<\/p>\n

So here goes: when I wrote of identities yesterday, I told only half the truth.<\/p>\n

What I said is that, when we retire, we don\u2019t suddenly lose the gifts that made us good at what we did. What I didn\u2019t say is that we often do lose the acknowledgement of those abilities.<\/p>\n

When I stopped being a camp director, I can\u2019t remember ever being asked for advice by new directors. For the record, I didn\u2019t ask either (maybe it\u2019s because we think we know what our predecessor will say).<\/p>\n

Same happened when I left the church. While still a pastor, folks asked how I came up with relevant and moving sermons. And I had plenty of opportunities to deliver them. Not afterwards.<\/p>\n

And I\u2019m expecting the same with teaching. I\u2019m not going to get requests from new teachers wanting to know how I motivated students (again, I didn\u2019t ask my predecessor either, something I now regret).<\/p>\n

So if you live with a retired person who is struggling with lost identity. Know that the pain comes not because he or she is unnoticed but unused.<\/p>\n

Now, I\u2019ve come to the point in my blog where I offer hope (a thought to help us deal with unpleasant realities). And I\u2019ll do that\u2014tomorrow.<\/p>\n

For now, and in honor of those who struggle with identity lost, I\u2019ll let the pain linger, which it often does for too many retirees. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve always tried to be honest with readers. Nonfiction guru Lee Gutkind calls it \u201ckeeping it real.\u201d So here goes: when I wrote of identities yesterday, I told only half the truth. What I said is that, when we retire, we don\u2019t suddenly lose the gifts that made us good at what we did. What […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2064"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2064\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2066,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2064\/revisions\/2066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}