NEVER RETIRE

by Phillip Day

‘When I was a boy, the Dead Sea was only sick.’ – George Burns

 When pro­duc­tiv­ity ends, so can our will to go on. A gold watch and a pat on the back can be inter­preted as the golden boot: ‘All right, thank you very much. Make way for the young now.’ You’re noth­ing but a ‘human resource’, off to the post office and then to the scrap-heap, draw­ing your pen­sion once a week and scratch­ing down lot­tery num­bers while chil­dren squirt you with water pistols.

Lack of goals and a drop in pro­duc­tiv­ity can spell dis­as­ter for the recently retired. The sud­den change in pace and lack of men­tal stim­u­la­tion seem refresh­ing at first but can lead to bore­dom, feel­ings of worth­less­ness, chronic depres­sion and Jerry Springer. To com­pen­sate, many elderly adopt the habit of liv­ing in the past, which tells me they have noth­ing to look for­ward to. Far bet­ter to stay focused in the here-and-now, remain­ing active and men­tally engaged, not slothful.

Find a job you like or start a busi­ness. Set men­tal tasks. Plan goals. Stay social and rel­e­vant. Travel. Make your fond­est mem­o­ries the years in which you have the great­est invest­ment. What do you wish to accom­plish by bed-time tonight? (The scale of achiev­ing does not matter!)

  • Retire­ment? I’m utterly against it
  • Con­tinue pro­duc­ing, you’ll have more fun
  • The insur­ance com­pa­nies have embez­zled your pen­sion fund anyway
  • Never retire FROM some­thing, always retire TO something
  • Now is the time to use your skills to start a new project
  • If you are lazy and not work­ing at eighty, GET A JOB
  • The extra income will be useful
  • In most long-lived cul­tures, retire­ment is unknown. Every­one pro­duces, some still father­ing sprogs at ninety
  • Employ the elderly. Seventy-year-olds know a lot of stuff
  • Dream – Plan – Deliver, and I don’t mean pizza
  • Accord­ing to the longevity experts, at 65 you are approx­i­mately 55% of the way through your lifes­pan potential!
  • Sit­ting at home does noth­ing but pro­voke feel­ings of worth­less­ness (big nocebo), owned up to even by lot­tery win­ners, who often face depres­sion or return to work to avoid going loopy
  • Why not work for yourself?
  • Cre­ate! Pro­duce! Serve!
  • Show some­one you’re still alive
  • Blink!

FURTHER RESOURCES

The Lit­tle Book of Atti­tude by Phillip Day

Down­load­able version