Retirement is Overrated

I really resonated with Matt Cheuvront’s post, “Weekends are Overrated.” He mentions what sounds like a bar worth visiting in Atlanta called Monday Night Brewing that’s taken the theme Weekends are Overrated to the point that they’ve adopted as their tagline. They want to help turn around the philosophy that’s so ingrained into us of working for the weekend. We slave away all week so that we can enjoy our weekends. Then do another 5 days to enjoy another 2 days. The balance is off somewhere, isn’t it?

But it gets worse if you do the math on (1) Your Entire Life versus (2) Retirement. It could be this:

1. 65 years
2. 1 year

The numbers get even more skewed, don’t they? Oh, sorry, it could also be this:

1. 65 years
2. 10 years

Or 20 or 30 years, sure. But you’re then 75, 85 or 95. You might be having a blast, but it’s not the same blast that you had when you were 25, 35, or 55. It’s not even necessarily better or worse, but it’s different. It’s also irreversible. You will never be 30 again–as much as you think you are. Your kids will never be 7 again. Your grand kids will never be 2 again.

Why retire at all?

I’m going to take another angle: I don’t want to retire. I want to “work” until I can’t anymore. But we’re onto definitions now: what is work? Work is often defined as something you don’t want to do. Fine, call it something else. I hope I’m writing (and earning money doing it) when I’m 85. Is that work? If you want to call it that, you may. But if I’m enjoying it, it’s not work according to the definition. In fact, if we redefine what these terms mean, we’re already better off. What does it mean to retire? Stop doing the job you’ve been doing for years?

So what is it called when you do something that you enjoy and get paid for it?

Success.