Time to Go.

Michel de Montaigne

Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) was a French Renaissance philosopher and writer that popularized the essay as a literary form. Born into a wealthy family at the Château de Montaigne, he studied law and served for fourteen years as a magistrate in the Parlement of Bordeaux. In 1571, at the age of 38, he "retired" to the tower library of his family estate to dedicate himself to reading, meditating, and importantly, writing his essays.

The Essays of Michel de Montaigne is a monumental work, filled with personal anecdotes and classical references, all intrinsically linked to his philosophy of freedom, tranquility, and the cultivation of his inner world.

This week is my last week at the Denver Performing Arts Complex, and not coincidentally, my last week of employment in general, which is to say I will be retiring at the end of the month. I am no Montaigne, and this Causerie is not meant to be some great philosophical work. But like Montaigne, I will be very happy with my own little library in my own little office, and will plan to continue this coaching practice for as long as it seems fun and I can be of value to others.

Speaking of which, this post is supposed to be about career transition, and so we come upon the critical question you have to ask yourself: When is it time to go?

Here are a couple of hints, courtesy of Monsieur Montaigne:

• When you're in a meeting and you say "we tried that before."

"The opinion I have of it is not worth much; and yet I find in my experience that it may be supported by reason, but not sustained by certainty." Book 2, Chapter 12.

• When you've lost sight of your purpose, your values, and your career goals.

"The archer must first know what he is aiming at, and then set his hand, his bow, his string, his arrow, and his movements for that goal. Our plans go astray because they have no direction and no aim. No wind works for the [one] that has no port of destination." Book 2, Chapter 1.

• When you are searching for professional growth.

  "I aim here only at revealing myself, who will perhaps be different tomorrow, if I learn something new which changes me." Book 3, Chapter 13.

  
  

• When you can't find work in the entertainment business.

"The arts that promise to keep our body in health and our soul in health promise us much; but at the same time there are none that keep their promise less." Book 3, Chapter 13.

That last one is is a tough reality for those who want to stay in the business but find that opportunities are somewhere between slim and none. To those folks I say--take heart, there is a way forward.

As for myself, I plan to adopt Montaigne's advice on idleness:

"Lately when I retired to my home, determined so far as possible to bother about nothing except spending the little life I have left in rest and seclusion, it seemed to me I could do my mind no greater favor than to let it entertain itself in full idleness and stay and settle in itself, which I hope it might do more easily now, having become weightier and riper with time. But I find that , on the contrary, like a runaway horse, it gives itself a hundred more times trouble than it took for others, and gives birth to so many chimeras and fantastic monsters, one after another, without order or purpose, that in order to contemplate their ineptitude and strangeness at my pleasure, I have begun to put them in writing, hoping in time to make my mind ashamed of itself." Book 1, Chapter 8.

Here's to chasing away the chimeras and fantastic monsters.