World Tennis No.1 Ashleigh Barty’s recent announcement of retirement from professional tennis at the age of 25 was ‘shocking’ breaking news for all media channels and social media. It is not the first time that a sports professional is retiring at the peak of his or her performance and fame. Yet, these are rare exceptions rather than the norm. Competitive sports as a career have a much limited span than other regular professions some of which do not even have any official retirement age.
Coming
just a few weeks after winning the Australian Open, a first in 44 years for an
Australian woman who won three Grand Slam titles in three different surfaces-
Wimbledon, French and Australian Opens, Barty’s was a bold decision. She held
the World No.1 position for 121 weeks and for three consecutive years at No.1.
Why
now, why so soon? Barty articulated the answer as she felt ‘physically spent’
and having no ‘emotional want to challenge yourself at the very top level
anymore’. Well, she will have her said reasons or unsaid reasons to take such a
decision.
In
recent history there are a few, still very few, such examples of professionals
retiring at their peak and at a relatively young age. Let me take one more such
extraordinary retirement of a sports star.
In
2016 the German-Finnish racing driver Nico Erik Rosberg announced his
retirement just five days after winning the Formula-1 World Championship. That
Rosberg’s father Keke Rosberg himself was the F1 World Champion in 1982 or that
he was brought up in Monaco may be incidental to his illustrious racing career
starting with competitive go-kart racing at the age of six, progressing into
car racing at the age of 15 and winning nine races in 2002 at the age of 16. As
teammates Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton had several F1 race wins and a much
documented rivalry between them.
As teammates,
Hamilton and Rosberg won 54 of 78 races over four seasons. Hamilton had 32
victories, 55 podium finishes and qualified ahead of Rosberg 42 times. Rosberg
had 22 victories, 50 podium finishes and qualified ahead of Hamilton 36 times.
During this period, Hamilton won the Formula One World Championship title
twice, and Rosberg won the title once.
Retiring from
F1 racing as a World Champion at the age of 31 is not something everyone would
want to do. But for those who want to do they have their reasons. As for
Rosberg, he too felt he achieved what he wanted, and wanted to focus on other
things in life with his young family.
It is not that
retirements make news only for the young. The old too can take such bold
decisions to retire. When Pope Benedict XVI resigned as Pope in 2013 it was
received as a shockingly extraordinary decision. And indeed, it was shockingly
extraordinary if we look at the history of papacy in the Catholic Church. It
was for the first time in more than 700 years a Catholic Pope was voluntarily
resigning. Otherwise, in the modern era popes retired only on death. Pope
Benedict XVI cited poor health related to old age as the reason for his
resignation. While that is a genuine reason for any retirement in most professions,
that was pretty much unusual for a Pope. The former Pope now known as Pope
Emeritus leads a mostly private spiritual life after retirement. He himself has
expressed his desire to be known as “Father Benedict”. He finds his fulfilment
even beyond papacy.
These and other
similar cases of extraordinary retirements point towards new possibilities of
defining and defying retirements as we know the concept in its traditional
sense. The industrial era brought with it certain definitions and limits of the
concept of ‘work’. Retirement is one such. Work was defined as doing certain
tasks for remuneration to accomplish set goals within a certain time limit and
with specified starting age and retiring age. In the pre-industrial world
retiring was more of a natural process of retiring hurt or retiring due to old
age. In sports, entertainment or such voluntary and highly specialised
professions fitness and winning chances determined voluntary or forced
retirements. By and large most people followed the normal course of work and
retirement.
Things have started changing in the last couple of decades for a small but
growing number of professionals in different fields. People have started
redefining success and fulfilment. Doing more of the same thing, going for the
Nth championship title, multiplying the monetary rewards or being in the
limelight of fame are not always the motivating forces for these small number
of people. They have other ways of finding fulfilment which could be personal
or even irrational to others. For long retirement was the opposite of work. Not
anymore, even for the many regular retirees. Many of them ‘retire’ while they
are physically and mentally active and they ‘retry’ different things rather
than retiring from active life.
Recently
someone met me for career guidance after over a decade long break from a
corporate career. She asked me ‘are you retired?’ I said, ‘No. I stopped
working’. I had to give a short explanation to make her understand the
difference. I stopped working almost 12 years back and never allowed myself to
be retired. I made a late entry into my corporate career and to compensate for
that I made an early exit!
Alternative to
work for many people used to be some other work for long time and even now for
the most. But now for a small minority non-work is an alternative to work.
Non-work need not mean being idle or being of no value. Non-work would mean to
stay away from the limitations and the perks of work and find other meaningful
or fulfilling activities, personal pursuits, or social engagements. This choice
can now happen at any stage and at any age. That is why we now see youngsters
starting up different things early on in their life while at the college or in
their early corporate careers.
Work
is getting redefined in many ways in the 21st century, much faster
than in the previous century. So, are all the other things related to work.
Maybe in the 22nd century humans may not need to work at all.
Instead, they will go back to the Garden of Eden, the sandy beaches of the
ocean or to the alluring snowy mountains while machines do all the work, much
of the thinking, planning and management!
“When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.” - Lao Tsu