"What is the right time of retirement?"

Recently, the resignation of the famous people in political, business and sports scenes has become hot topics. Some people bow out amid triumph like the head coach Hoshino of the professional baseball Hanshin Tigers, while others cling to his post regardless of the voice of the surroundings, compelling retirement because of a scandal or advanced age.
In Japan, traditionally, there is "aesthetics of resignation" from the ancient times. Time to quit was thought to be "Providence", and to bow out gracefully is regarded as a virtuous way to yield. In extreme interpretation of the cases, bringing things to an end by taking life, i.e., by committing hara-kiri is considered as ultimate grace, and admitted as "testament of beauty." However, in recent years, contrary to the above-mentioned tradition, resignations widely critiqued as "still clinging to status", or "tarnishing one's twilight years" etc. are observed conspicuously.

One of the factors, which determine the beautiful retirement, is to carry out one's responsibility to cultivate his successor. Still another is to find out the next target to challenge for the rest of life. A man whose time of retirement become an issue is mostly called as the man "who attained fame and name" under a seniority-based system and lifetime employment system, and his judgment capability have been proven in the past on the record. However, though he is supposed to maintain it on the same level up until now, in most of the cases, reality is confused with fiction and moreover, everyone but him is already aware of his lost capability. Therefore, the judgment whether he has a sense of responsibility or not, should be left not to him but to a third party. However, in case of Japan, present system where neither enterprises nor bureaucratic organization openly allow external institution to check it properly, in reality the archaic argument is entirely focused on such a trivial level like who should attach a bell to the neck of the man who went up to the top in a seniority-based system and lifetime employment system. Thus, the key factor to directing a refined retirement seems to first set the stage to realize a real public company liberal to the process of global standard and to find out a sense of value in the second life aside from the status and titles achieved in the past.