Growth

There’s a trick to the “Graceful Exit.” It begins with the vision to recognize when a job, a life stage, a relationship is over — and to let go. It means leaving what is over without denying its validity or its past importance in our lives. It involves a sense of future, a belief that every exit line is an entry, that we are moving on, rather than out.

The trick of retiring well may be the trick of living well. It’s hard to recognize that life isn’t a holding action, but a process. It’s hard to learn that we don’t leave the best parts of ourselves behind. We own what we learned back there. The experiences and the growth are grafted onto our lives. And when we exit, we can take ourselves along — quite gracefully.