Friday, April 6, 2012

Why I shall NEVER retire! A Declaration of Independence

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
I am at the age (64 on 02/16/11) when I am asked one 
particular question over and over again: "When do you plan 
to retire?" My resolute answer delivered con brio surprises 
my questioners: "I shall NEVER retire!"
Because they ALWAYS want to know why… I have 
decided to write this, a latter-day Declaration of 
Independence, to provide a ready means of response 
for myself and all the other people worldwide who 
are thrilled by what they do and the life  they have 
fashioned and have absolutely no desire to change 
things, no matter what.
J’y suis, J’y reste.
It was le Marechal McMahon at the siege of Sebastopol 
in 1855 who memorably barked out this trenchant phrase 
which loosely translates into "I am here and here I shall 
remain!"  It’s the way those of us feel who are adamant 
about either retaining our present position or engaging 
in other constructive work instead of retiring.
You see, we know a secret that the vast horde of the 
retired either does not know or came to understand too 
late: work invigorates, energizes, and exercises facilities 
which otherwise quickly enervate and deteriorate. In other 
words, productive, meaningful work is essential to staying 
young, alive, and alert. So, let’s review all the reasons why 
retirement as generally practised and understood is  one 
of the worst things you can ever do to yourself.
1) Retirement rots the brain.
If you have work you like,  one reason  you fancy it 
is because you have meaningful questions to answer, 
challenges to face, and labor to do. Work, as Sigmund 
Freud well understood, is crucial to the well-lived life. 
Take  away work which engages your full attention, 
experience, and expertise, and you have removed a 
critical factor of your well-being.  Formless leisure can 
never replace the knowledge that you are engaged in 
something worth doing.
2) Retirement leads to physical deterioration.
Take a good,close look at the next person aged 65 
or older who passes your way. The ones engaged in 
significant,  constructive labor (the only kind of work 
any of us should ever do) have an aura radiating energy 
and purpose. They are "with it". Lights! Camera! Action!
The presentation of our laborless peers is very, very 
different. Having nothing better to do than contemplate 
physical infirmities and eternity, they are often peevish, 
selfish, with vistas narrowing, hope evaporating. In such 
circumstances, it is easy to see why physical problems 
and limitations abound.
3) Retirement slashes  your income and lifestyle.
As every study grimly shows, the average person 
hasn’t put away nearly enough money to sustain at 
retirement their current lifestyle, much less do the extra 
things (world cruise, anyone?) you desire.  Do you want to 
make do with less? I certainly don’t. Why face the 
conclusion of life scrimping, having to count every 
penny and cut back… and back… and back? It’s demeaning 
and demoralizing. What’s more it’s completely unnecessary… 
if you keep satisfying labor in your life.
4) Retirement renders a lifetime of experience and 
expertise superfluous , useless.
The day you leave your present employ, you are at 
the top of your professional game. You know the 
most, can do the most, can create the most, and 
solve the most. You are a person of knowledge, 
wisdom, and insight. Wow!
Walk out that door… cut the ties with what you 
have done before and your skill level and all you 
can do with it starts to deteriorate at once… each 
day diminishing  your knowledge and skills. You are 
now walking away from everything you have 
aimed at and achieved for so many years. Does this 
make any sense at all?
5) Retirement reduces respect, deference, and 
awe.
Are you good at what you do? Have you worked a 
lifetime to perfect your skills,  to be and do better 
than others in your field? Are you a master of 
your craft, with the respect, deference and even 
awe that that generates? Will you like doing with 
less and less of this, as the relevancy of what 
you know and can do inevitably diminishes; as 
you move farther and farther away from the peak 
of your skills?
When was the last time you watched a retired 
person at any event in your field? They were no 
doubt greeted politely, even enthusiastically. But 
the conversation quickly moved on to today’s 
questions, today’s challenges… and as it did so 
the retired person, no matter how supreme he 
had been before,  became inevitably de trop. 
Remember when this happened to former 
star Norma Desmond when she returned to 
Paramount Studios in "Sunset Boulevard"? It was, 
in the truest sense of the word… pathetic. Is this what 
you really want, to be forgotten… but not gone?
6) Retirement reduces your ability to help others.
The best careers are always about the good you 
do to others. Retire and that important ability declines day 
by day, painfully, inevitably.
Have people benefited from what you know and 
can do? Has the need for this knowledge and skill 
abated in any way? Or is it as robust as ever? If 
the latter, then why (except for purely selfish reasons) 
would you ever want to stop helping? Stop improving? 
Stop transforming and enlightening? It makes utterly 
no sense…  no sense at all.
How a wily German prince , long dead, is 
influencing your life.
Prince Otto von Bismarck was probably the most 
important statesman of the 19th century, conniving 
as he did at the  unification of Germany.  But perhaps 
his even more important (and invidious) legacy is the 
fact that he determined the age of retirement for much 
of the world. This determination is having a very 
definite and pronounced influence on… you!
Prince Bismarck, first Chancellor of the Imperial Reich, 
wanted to dish the fast-growing German Socialists, alarming 
people with a very different national vision than his own. 
Old-age pensions provided him with the means of seeming 
benevolent to folks whose votes he wanted, without costing much.
German statisticians (then as now superb at their craft) made 
it clear to him that most people would never live to 65 and that that, 
therefore, was a most admirable date to pledge pensions.  And so 
a sacred cow was born, with Prince Bismarck’s raucous 
laugh reverberating through the years, keeping millions enthralled 
to one of the most cynical of men and his very cynical policy: promise 
what you will never have to give.
Today, you are young at  65… act like it!
Today’s 65 year olds are completely different from those 
of over a century ago. For one thing, we are alive. For another, 
we are healthier, more fit, more active…. and thus in no particular 
practical need of retirement or the trickle that is Social Security.
It’s time, therefore, to take a new view of retirement; to see 
it for what it is, not the solution to but the enemy of our well 
being. Join me: say no to retirement. It’ll be the very best 
decision you have ever made and will put you in the company 
of sovereigns and pontiffs, none of whom ever retire either!

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