Is "retired" in your vocabulary? Some people say I'm crazy to still spending time to teach 3 days a week without pay (since the LAUSD dismantled the Division of Adult and Career ED and rendered us, 1700 teachers, jobless). This on top of a dozen other volunteer work. They tell me, join the senior club, enjoy, tour the world, dance, play mahjong. Really? Others bless me, an aging woman, for plodding on to reach out to the unfortunates and keeping the light. I say it's now pure...ly service to my Creator, a form of saying deo gratia, merci dieu. But actually, it's also for a selfish reason: When you give, you also get something in return, though perhaps, only to keep the mind from rusting, the heart from the pain of grieving for a loved one, and the body from crumbling altogether. Leonardo da Vinci once said, "inaction saps the vigor of the mind." And the spirit, most of all.
