I sat in a small meeting room with white blank walls, crammed around a conference room table with several managers in a former job when I first heard the line. It came from a bald, beady-eyed bureaucrat, “Well this could be a rocking chair moment.”
I paused and assumed I knew what he meant but had to clarify, just to be sure. “What is a rocking chair moment?” I asked.
The bald, beady-eyed bureaucrat seemed to sit up straighter and proudly proclaimed, “Why it is a moment that defines who you are, your career, the moment you will talk about in a retirement home, in your rocking chair.”
I probably should have stayed quiet but I looked him straight into his gleaming beady eyes and said, “None of my rocking chair moments will happen within these white walls. My rocking chair moments come from my family.”
We can define our rocking chair moments. We don’t have to let others define them for us. My husband and I have made career and lifestyle changes that have involved risk and commitments to ensure our rocking chair moments are family focused and not based on accolades from a corporation.We love our industries, business and achieving goals.
But our rocking chair moments?
Our rocking chair moments come from our children, the experiences we have with them along with our extended family and friends. These are the moments we will sit back and reminisce about someday we hope. Today, our girls were not feeling well most of the day with fevers but for a short moment with the aid of Tylenol, we were able to all be in the barley fields, waiting for it to dry down just a bit more before being harvested. My parents, three siblings, their spouses and our friends that work on the farm were all there. My sister captured the above picture of my husband, Nathan and me along with our three children, Hunter, Anika and Elizabeth.
This was a rocking chair moment.
What is a rocking chair moment in your life?
My rocking chair moments are generally found around a campfire with those I love. My career gives me great reward, and I can help so many . . . But my favorite times are with my loves.
I agree Pam! Thanks for the comment! You are so good at creating rocking chair moments. I love my work and the reward that comes from it but I don’t want to base my “rocking chair moments” to be based on my career.
I like the thought “Rocking Chair Moment,” Katie!
My “Rocking Chair Moments” include family and showing livestock.
Christmas Card worthy family picture.
Thank you Robyn! I appreciate your kind comment.
I love this! I’ve never thought about rocking chair moments! I would agree that mine would be about family – sitting with my grandchildren and telling them how their grandpa and I met. Telling them about my grandparents. Gosh Katie, now you have me crying! 🙂
Love it – “rocking chair moment”. For the leadership program I coordinate for the Iowa Soybean Association, the “Ag-Urban Leadership Initiative”, we start the first class session with people imagining their retirement party and they go around the room, thank the other people in the class for attending their retirement party and then tell them the favorite thing they heard from people there. Everyone talks about their family, not making budget for the year… Then we go through some deep, heart-felt, values-driven leadership training throughout the year and then during the last class we go back to their “retirement party” and they all make a speech or address everyone at their party. It is my favorite class – you get to hear everyone’s “rocking chair moments”!