When Is It Time to Hang It Up?

Once when I visited Mary, a member of a congregation I used to serve, she told me this story: “I was driving to the grocery store, and I almost hit a cyclist. I turned around, drove home, called my daughter and said, ‘Susan, get over here.’ When she arrived, I gave her my keys and said, ‘From now on, you’re my chauffeur.’”

Barry Sanders won the Heisman Trophy at Oklahoma State. As a running back for the Detroit Lions, Sanders led the NFL in rushing for four seasons, made the Pro Bowl 10 times, and was the league’s Most Valuable Player in 1997. Just before training camp opened in 1999, Sanders, at the top of his game, abruptly left football. "The reason I am retiring is simple: My desire to exit the game is greater than my desire to remain in it," Sanders wrote. "I have searched my heart through and through and feel comfortable with this decision."

When is it time to hang it up? Mary quit driving when she concluded that she no longer possessed the skills to drive. Sanders quit the NFL when he decided he no longer had passion for the game. Mary and Barry were self-aware, more than most. The same year that Sanders retired, Cornell University psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger tested subjects on their logic, grammar, and sense of humor. They found that those who ranked in the bottom 25% rated their skills far above average. The less funny you are, the funnier you think you are! That’s the Dunning-Kruger Effect: the tendency to overestimate our abilities. 

Usually those of us who suffer from this bias need outside intervention. The Motor Vehicle Commission doesn’t renew our license. Or, instead of retiring from the NFL, you sign a contract with the Jets, blow up your arm, and disgrace yourself in a sexting scandal, as Brett Favre did after leaving Green Bay. 

In the days when judges ruled Israel—leaders appointed by God on an ad hoc basis—the elders had to stage an intervention with Samuel, Israel’s last and greatest judge. “You are old, and your sons do not follow in your ways; appoint for us, then, a king to govern us, like other nations.” Samuel was hurt, understandably so! But truth be told, both sides were at fault. The elders could have softened the blow with a retirement dinner and a watch (or a sundial), but Samuel could have taken the initiative, and with God’s permission, exited the stage of his own free will. 

We need people we know, love, and trust in our lives who will not tell us what we want to hear, but what we need to hear. And we need to take their sound advice to heart. Life is full of transitions. The only constant is change. We can hold our present circumstances loosely because there is life after this job. There is life after the nest empties. There is life after retirement. There is life after giving up your keys. Shoot, there is even life after death! That’s the Good News.