Retirement is Death....Keep Working

According Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, a Singapore elder statesman who turns 85 this year at a recent silver industry conference, the secret to his longevity is attributed to his active life and the fact that he has never stopped working. In his own words, "We got to educate those about to retire: Don't retire, work. Retirement means death." Is this inferred to also mean that we should all be working till death?

In Japan, people really do work to their deaths! They even have a term for it, "Karoshi", which means death from overwork. Because of peer pressure to keep up with or out-do their colleagues or competitors, some Japanese work at such frenzied pace that they end up dying from a heart attack or stroke due to the overwhelming amount levels of overtime and stress!

For most people, their main purpose in life is to retire comfortably. In order to attain this goal, many defer enjoyment and leisure to work as hard as they possibly can, save as much money, and hopefully be able to stop working by the time they reach their sixties. Only when they retire would they try to sit back, relax, pursue their hobbies and try to enjoy the rest of their later years. But with the soaring costs of living and erosion in the value of money, how practical can this dream retirement be? We would probably have to settle for much less as we watch our savings deplete and get eroded away by inflation. It has become a worrying fact that not many of us would be able to afford a comfortable retirement with the same high standard of living we had before we retire. Even if we do manage to save enough money, would we have the energy or health to start pursuing our interests only then after leading such a hectic work life previously?

I agree that retirement means death, but only if pursue retirement as an end goal by itself. What do I mean by this? It means that we should not be working for work's sake in order to attain retirement as the starting point to enjoy life. When you are in your sixties, what if you find that after deferring gratification by burying yourself in work for so many years, you end up not finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? You end up losing the sense of purpose and meaning to your life and this is a very frightening prospect.

My suggestion is this, to start doing what you love NOW! Be it a hobby or interest, I'm sure there's ways to start earning money from it either in a related job or as your own business venture. If work is your passion, it becomes play and I'm sure that you will never ever going to stop pursuing what you love doing until you die. In this way, retirement becomes an irrelevant concept and you can be deriving gratification, a sense of purpose and meaning from work at the same time!

"Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful." - Herman Cain

So start doing what you love now and you'll never look at work in the same light again!