I recently got a haircut. I don’t have a regular hairdresser, instead I will often go to the place that is most convenient rather than find myself in a routine of visiting the same spot. This is probably why some of the biggest mistakes I have made have been haircuts. On this particular day, I wandered into a salon that I had visited over twelve months ago. I hadn’t been back, not because of a bad haircut, but because life and work had me in different parts of the world for some time. I hadn’t met Mandy at this salon before, but when she came out to greet me, her demeanor gave me an immediate sense of warmth and welcome. And we got chatting.
Mandy had owned her own salon for over thirty-five years. It is closer to the city, near the university campus. It was a large salon, and very successful. She was proud to boast that some of the country’s most well-regarded business leaders were her clients, and that her reputation for giving fantastic haircuts meant people would often travel long distances to see her. She had built the business herself, and at one time had ten hairdressers working for her. She even had an offer to franchise the business at one time but turned it down because she wanted to focus on her passion for customer service. When Mandy and her husband decided to retire, they purchased a small farm in the hinterland, with plenty of space for their grandchildren to run around and room to grow produce.
But after a year of retirement Mandy started to feel at a loose end. ‘I don’t think retirement is really for me,’ Mandy said, catching my eye in the mirror. ‘I started to feel like there was no purpose in my days. And I want to feel like I am doing something meaningful. I could especially feel it when my friends would tell me that I didn’t seem happy in retirement. They couldn’t understand it!’ So, she decided to return to work and picked up two days a week at the local salon near her hobby farm. She’d been here for three months now, she told me, and can’t imagine ever retiring full time. ‘I was just sort of moving from one thing to the next, and not really feeling as though I was achieving much in my life. And there is no virtue in that.’
Virtue is an interesting word for Mandy to have used. It struck me as unusual for her to frame her experience in this way. It could have come across as quaint, but coming from Mandy, in that context, it felt pointed and meaningful. And I couldn’t stop thinking about that word – virtue.
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