WHEN IT'S TIME TO PASS THE BATON

Ten, nine, eight, seven ...
This New Year's Eve, Dick Clark will again be on TV, counting down the seconds to midnight. But in his slurred speech, the result of a 2004 stroke, some of us can't help but hear the countdowns in our own lives—to the end of our careers, to the difficulties of old age, to the decisions we must make about closing chapters that defined us.
Dick Clark has been hosting TV shows for more than 50 years, and some people wonder if it's time for him to retire.
Mr. Clark turned 80 this past Monday, and a lot of people consider him a hero for remaining on the job. They see him as a role model for resiliency, and a vital steward of New Year's Eve, a holiday designed to look back as well as forward. They ask: Why surrender Dec. 31 to the young?
Others argue that Mr. Clark has become an inappropriate symbol for what should be a happy celebration, because he reminds viewers of sadder things: the ravages of illness and the hazards of aging. He had his time, they say. He ought to let go of the baton and allow a younger generation to run with it alone.
We heard similar drumbeats around 80-year-old Bobby Bowden, the legendary Florida State football coach. In the wake of the team's lackluster record this year and calls for his resignation, he announced his retirement on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Oprah Winfrey has confirmed that she will end her talk show in 2011, after she completes 25 seasons. "This show has been my life," she said, "and I love it enough to know when it's time to say goodbye."
These public figures remind us of the hard decisions that often accompany letting go. It is an inexact process. It can be a mistake to leave a job too early, and it can be easy to stay too long.
"A lot of people retire because they have enough money. I call them 'the bored affluent,' " says John Sondereker, who retired in 2003, at age 60, as an executive vice president at Wells Fargo Financial. "Golf will never replace a good career."
 Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
Dick Clark, on 'American Bandstand' in 1970: He's still in the spotlight.
But staying too long in a job can be worse. I've heard from readers over the years offering sharp advice about clinging to a fading career. Here's how one summed it up: "When the horse dies, dismount."
When people can't bring themselves to retire, it is often because they look for evidence that confirms their urge to hold on, says Richard Staelin, a professor at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, who studies "confirmation bias." Those who hang on too long tend to ignore things that would tell them it's time to leave, he says.
Since his stroke, Mr. Clark's show has continued to be television's top-rated New Year's Eve program. It's not as if he's a football coach whose team has stopped winning, says Larry Klein, the show's longtime producer. "We don't have losing seasons. We win every single year."
Also, feedback from viewers has been far more positive than negative, says Mr. Klein. "They say Dick shows strength and courage. He created the show. He's an American institution. He deserves to decide on his own when and if he'll leave." (Mr. Clark, who launched his New Year's Eve show in 1972, declined to comment for this column.)
Dr. Staelin wonders if Mr. Clark and his team are subconsciously focusing only on the positives—the high ratings, the complimentary fan mail. They may not be giving equal weight to other questions: Are Mr. Clark's limitations compromising a show that might be stronger without him? How will these post-stroke years change the public's perception of him? Will he be remembered for the telegenic charm of his prime, or for being an entertainer who held on too long?
It's hard to view ourselves with clear eyes, says Dr. Staelin. He uses himself as an example. He is 70 and believes his teaching skills are undiminished. "But I may also have confirmation bias," he says.
Jack Rigby, a 58-year-old dentist in Hudson, Ohio, has gone through all the stages of leaving and grieving for a job. In 2005, suffering from liver disease that left him fatigued and in pain, he made a hard choice. He wrote to 1,200 patients saying that "with great sadness," he was giving up his practice. A younger dentist would take over.
More than 250 patients wrote back, and their loving and supportive letters sustained Dr. Rigby through his 2007 liver transplant. Reading the letters became a retirement ritual for him. On mornings when he yearned to go to work, he'd sometimes get up early and sit at home, paging through the letters. "I had them stacked up, and when I was feeling badly, it helped to read them," he says.
Over time, he realized that pining for his job wasn't going to help him move forward. And so, this past August, he decided to get rid of the letters.
He could have just thrown them away, but he wanted to do something more meaningful. He took out his paper shredder, and read each letter one last time before feeding it into the machine. "I was pretty emotional," he says. "But I'm glad I did it. You can't walk two trails. I can't go back to being a dentist. I now look at those letters as a lifeboat which supported my passage to this new place and time."
The medicine Dr. Rigby takes leaves his hands trembling, so he knows he will never return to administering anesthetic and drilling teeth. But he's grateful that in retirement he has been able to re-embrace his love of photography. Because he uses a tripod with his camera, his tremors don't matter.
Dr. Rigby says he hears from former patients who are happy with the young dentist who took over his practice. And though it saddens him that he will never get to work with his son, who will soon graduate from dental school, he is buoyed to know that newer generations are carrying on the work he loved. Likewise, Mr. Sondereker, the retiree from Wells Fargo, says he feels a sense of accomplishment in retirement, knowing he trained and mentored dozens of people who are still there.
Ann Fishman, a consultant who specializes in marketing to different generations, says those contemplating retirement should measure success by how well they perform as mentors. In that regard, she thinks Dick Clark is doing OK.
Since Dec. 31, 2005, Mr. Clark has shared New Year's Eve hosting duties with Ryan Seacrest of "American Idol," who is 34.
"We need to honor our aging and we need to honor our young," Ms. Fishman says. "America was built on the cooperation of generations working together. When Clark and Seacrest are together, it shows us that we don't have to be afraid of aging, and we don't have to promote youth to the exclusion of old age."
Mr. Clark knows he won't be the New Year's Eve host forever. Like bandleader Guy Lombardo, his tenure will end. For now, perhaps, we should pay attention to his exchanges with Mr. Seacrest, and to the high-spirited ways he introduces acts 50 years younger than he is. In today's splintered media world, there aren't many places anymore where several generations share the same stage.
Until Mr. Clark decides to retire, this image of him passing the baton, however slowly, may serve all of us well, as we consider our own paths and the emotional countdowns to come.