An Ebb’d Man or a Mattering Man

The self-help industry has a new term: Mattering.

A recent story in the Wall Street Journal addresses that less-than-loving feeling once you are turned out to pasture: “The Retirement Crisis No One Warns You About: Mattering: … How to continue to feel seen and valued.”

It brings to mind a previous essay of mine, “Nobody Writes to the Colonel)*. The title came from the name of a now defunct punk music club in Riga, Latvia: Pulkvedim Neviens Neraksta.

In late 1999, that club name captured something of what I was feeling during my own transition, after 40 years,  from a full-time leadership position to semi-retirement.

Back in 2000 the Colonel and I were both ebb’d men, as Shakespeare put it, but not exactly, since neither one of us was missed as in “Comes dear’d by being lack’d.” **

When I joined the lot of the ebb’d it left me feeling, shall we say, inconclusive and incomplete. In other words, I was no longer “stepping wide and handsome”.  My mattering, the “ sense that we are valued by others and that we have value to add to the world” was on my back heel.

There was much I did not miss about the job: the routine, the meetings (yawn), and the organization’s rituals, like performance appraisal, salary reviews, recruitment, etc.

I did miss a few self-starting, thinking colleagues to whom I could turn for ideas, energy and follow through.

I did not miss having to nudge the all-too-many-unwilling to do anything extra.  I probably could have been a better motivator  but since I believe deeply that motivation comes from within, there was not much I could do.

I did miss leading – and as an active leader, taking action – and the opportunity to achieve and to be recognized.

I was confident in my vision and as long as I had someone minding my back I was able to get stuff done.

I suppose this type of mattering comes down to the exercise of power – the ability to realize a vision – to apply resources – through a collaborative process with like-minded colleagues.

Once I handed in my keys, the ex officio power evaporated.

And in my professional circle, the marginalization played out in other ways, some work friends lasted, most faded away, some abruptly as a light switched off.

To the few lasting friends I was still a person more than a title, to the latter, a dimmed node in their social network.

One night in a bitter cold mile high Denver – while I was there for a professional conference – I expressed some of these dismal thoughts to a long-time friend and colleague.

My friend’s response: “It’s a job.”

In her eyes, there’s little reason to glorify those who may have put in long hours and done some things of significance.

For her, forty years of a job well done does not rate a laurel wreath, a victory lap or much of anything else – besides a retirement lunch.

The “It’s a job” contingent won’t have any problem segueing into retirement and there may be something to recommend this unassuming exit and moving on.

Career’s end or beginning?

There is  misgiving, uncertainty, and ambivalence about leaving a long-held job, of no longer mattering. The question rises: Did I invest too much of myself and became uxorious about the job? It happens.

At times, I’ve felt like a golden leaf on a beech tree in winter, reluctant to let go – even in February – until spring buds force me to drop away.

So, how do we matter in our golden years?

The WSJ article says it’s largely up to you. “If you’re in a hole, feeling like you don’t matter, go somewhere you’re needed, where you’re relied on, where people depend on you,” …. “You have a responsibility to make yourself useful again.”

In my own case, I kept busy with what I had always done: teaching, writing, and consulting. My Fulbright at the University of Latvia in 2009 and 2010 followed by two other Fulbright grants had me exclaiming, “People here actually think I have something to say!” I mattered!

Yesterday, idly perusing some children’s books in my home library, I came across a Latvian book. It was a gift inscribed to me with a photograph of the three young women at the University of Latvia who had used that book for a class project in 2013.

Their team project made a very good point about questioning when others only make assumptions, a concept I promote in my classes.

Now, in 2026, I teach less but continue to think and to write. My blog dates back to 2010 and has been a source of satisfaction with every piece that I post. I am fully aware that the readership – under the very long tail of the internet – is tiny, but I still get a personal mattering boost whenever I complete a post.

But, if you ever catch me posting rants, or re-posting rants or venting in letters to the editor, or shaking my fist at kids on my lawn, then indeed I no longer matter.

*In reality, the club’s name had nothing to do with my imaginary Soviet colonel; instead, it’s a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novelette (No One Writes to the Colonel) about a colonel waiting for a pension check and not so much about mattering.

Initially, I thought the rock club’s name was a sarcastic political statement about the social fate of the occupying Russian Colonels left behind by the collapse of the Soviet hegemony, and the departure of its despised occupying army.

For me, this Colonel became one of the many Russian expats living in Riga who wait for the next invasion, sweeping from the East across the farm lands and through the forests, bringing another “revolution” to reclaim their abusive power over Latvians.

Or, less sinisterly, my colonel is more like an acquaintance who, as a VP for a large company, mattered greatly and used to fly in corporate jets and get chauffeured to appointments. Now, in retirement, he finds himself just another elderly patient waiting in the doctor’s office – no more going to the head of the line!

**The “ebb’d man” quote is from Antony and Cleopatra (I. 4. 43) and suggests that one is most missed when missing, as discussed on p.53 of Shakespeare’s Imagery and What It Tells Us  by Caroline F. E. Spurgeon, NY: Cambridge Univ Press 1996 (first published 1935).

N.B. For other essays on numerous topics on leadership and literature and fables go to my Nucleus archive from 2010-early 2025.

© Copyright all text, John Lubans 2000 & 2026