Roger Federer, during his 2024 Commencement Address at Dartmouth, got it right:
“So I never went to college… but I did graduate recently. I graduated tennis. I know the word is “retire.” “Roger Federer retired from tennis.” Retired… The word is awful.
You wouldn’t say you retired from college, right? Sounds terrible. Like you, I’ve finished one big thing and I’m moving on to the next. Like you, I’m figuring out what that is.”
I agree with Roger that retired is an awful word. It means to “withdraw” or “retreat”. Hopefully none of us want to do that. I did a whole Ted Talk about that concept. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5F29F1ev8w
Roger is speaking to all of us. In life, we all are “moving on to the next big thing”. That is what life is about. Childhood to teenager. High school student to college student or worker. Perhaps getting married and having children. Buying a house or a car. Moving to a new city, state, or country.
When you change your perspective from “retiring” with the connotation that you are “done” to “I am moving onto my next big thing”, it opens up a world of possibility. That new world may be a slower paced, less intense time. That does not make it less worthy. It can be a time of discovery. It will be a time of new challenges.
However we wish to define it, we are all “figuring out what that is.” We get to choose what we do next. It’s not always apparent or logical. It often involves hard soul-searching and doubts. Maybe that is the point. We still need to use all of our experience, intelligence, and dreams to create something new for ourselves.
Near the end of his talk, he says to the graduates, “When I left tennis, I became a former tennis player. But you are not a former anything. . . I’m here to tell you… from the other side of graduation… that leaving a familiar world behind and finding new ones is incredibly, deeply, wonderfully exciting.”
Substitute your circumstance for “graduation”. Whether it be a new job, a new relationship, a new city, or a new career, the next chapter can be as exciting as Roger says. Embrace moving on to the new great you. Don’t live with regret of “I wish I would have.” It doesn’t mean throw away everything you have now. It means keep striving.
Dean Waggenspack 