Working to retire?
You should rethink that plan
Sigmund Freud, the famous Austrian neurologist and founder of psychoanalysis, said the two most important things in life are to have love and meaningful work.
In this linked article, the author makes the point that the idea of “traditional retirement” is a false dream, one that doesn’t lead to a happily ever after.
Too often we hear the stories of people who were healthy their whole lives, only to fall sick and pass away shortly after they retire. I’m sure someone you know has popped into your mind as an example of not reacting too well to “retirement”.
What’s going on?
“Too much time spent with no purpose is associated with unhappiness.”
Unhappiness, an emotional state, generates a swathe of chemicals in the body, including cortisol, our notorious stress hormone. This is a key culprit in the loss of our vitality and health and of increasing our susceptibility to illness.
So, how are we supposed to age gracefully then? How do we maintain purpose if we are to leave the legal “workforce”?
As the article states, “…not with busy work or trivial pursuits, but with meaningful activities.”
Hold on, why is it illegal for people to stop working past a certain age anyways?
Age discrimination is legal in some countries, while illegal in others. However, it is a form of legal discrimination nonetheless. It is an artificial constraint imposed upon society and the free market businesses. This has the effect of creating more barriers and friction in society, thereby slowing down our progress as a civilization.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that every job can be done by any age.
It absolutely makes business sense to remove risks and to optimize for performance. This is, and should be, the prerogative of business, and the free market regulatory institutions they’re a part of. You definitely don’t want older people working in jobs that are physically demanding and have high risk of physical injury. There are other fields like medical emergency response where speed of reaction is a daily determining factor in life and death. Yes, there are jobs where being past a certain age/ level of performance is significantly detrimental and risky, to the individual, to the company and to society.
But I don’t think it makes sense to put a blanket ban on every person past a certain age and for every job. After all, in some cases, people have reached some truly golden years in which to capitalize on the wisdom, knowledge, experience and networks that took them many decades to build.
The case of Warren Buffet (~$115 Billion net worth)
Did you know that Warren Buffet generated 97% percent of his wealth after his 59th birthday?
Pretty impressive for what many regard as the most successful investor of our time, and currently the 5th richest men in the world.
At age 59 (in 1989) his net worth was $3.6 Bn. If he had retired then, as I’m sure most of you would think is a logical thing to do, he would have been a pretty “normal”, successful billionaire. However, he didn’t stop working. He still put in 6 hours of reading every day for 6 days a week . What was he reading? The past financial reports of companies — the information fundamental to becoming a better investor.
Today, in 2023 and at the age of 93 (and some 34 years later!) his net wealth is approx $117 Bn with his charitable giving totaling $50 Bn in total. If you take away the $4Bn he made at age 59, you can see he made $113 Bn in the latter 34 years of his life, between the age of 60 and 93, — an age most are “taking it easy”.
His productivity (specifically his skill at investing) kept getting better, and his gains compounded. This is the power of compound interest, not just in finances but in knowledge and skill as well.
Now, imagine if his government told him he had to retire.
That $50 Billion that went towards making the world better would not have existed. One can logically say the world would be worse off than it is today.
The case for “Unretirement”
As can be seen, older people can not only keep contributing past retirement age, they are often more productive and skilled (depending on the field of work).
But older people also have much more to contribute than by being more skilled at making money. Their skills, wisdom and experience are a deep resource to humanity as a whole.
Inter-generational learning is something that has been declining as society is moving towards being very individual and “service-to-self” focused. It encourages living whatever life you wish, being in the moment, without much thought for the future.
This is where words of wisdom can save a lot of the youth today. Older people have perspective. They understand what truly matters in life. And they have worked through the hard issues — the difficult conversations, the emotional hangups, the betrayals and the fears.
I have learnt 99.9% of what I know from older people. Those that were brave enough to dare to live and/or lucky enough to survive. More so, they decided to share their learnings and experience with the world.
Older people can leverage their years of experience, mistakes and skills to keep delivering even more value to the world.
Old people don’t react too well to retirement.
Between 25 and 40 percent of people who retire reenter the workforce. While many think they have to go back to a paying job in order to get meaningful work, there are better ways to spend your time, and you could still be earning money.
So, what’s an older person to do?
I think one of the best categories to shift to is Education and Skills transfer.
There are many young people in the world that are trying to make it, to build better lives for themselves. They require coaching, mentorship, guidance. A lot of people are repeating the same mistakes. They require guidance in their respective fields towards mastering their craft.
A lot of people are aiming at the wrong things in life. The right teacher, the right believer in a child or an adult, can tip the balance for that person’s life and help them to overcome life’s obstacles, to get them back on track toward a happy and successful life.
More so, if they’re financially secure, unretired people could spend these days focusing on the younger generations within their own family and networks and making themselves available to mentoring them and passing on some of that hard-to-obtain life wisdom. Someone should think and work at maintaining the larger network of relationships that constitute family. These protectors of tradition and culture are usually the older generations.
Why should a business consider unretiring/ working with older people?
- Employers should recognize that offering opportunities to older workers is smart business (if you’re smart about it), and not just a feel-good, charitable act.
- Multi-generational teams with older members tend to be more productive; older adults boost the productivity of those around them, and such teams outperform single-generational ones.
- Skills and knowledge transfer is a large cost in most organizations. This kind of workload can be better outsourced towards older people, while core productive tasks of the business remain assigned to the standard employees.
My take?
Forcing older people out of the workforce ultimately cripples us further as a society as we take away people who have deep expertise and wisdom, energy to work and a deep desire and need to contribute.
Moreover, older people (as with all people) need a purpose. This is meant to be evolving and grow as we shift into different chapters in our life. Society should think about treating our older people better, for they are us in a few years time, and they will be our children in a few years after that.
Anyone that makes it to age 60 will have enough life experience and wisdom to teach something that others are interested in. I always delight in talking to and learning from older people. Their unique insights have been aged like fine wine. They are much better at seeing the forest from the trees.
I stopped trusting my “retirement” towards a corporation or government a long time ago.
My plan is to continue down the path of entrepreneurship and keep building businesses. Over the years I will get better at it, and can reduce the amount of work while improving the quality/ type of work.
If at age 59 I work 20 hours a week. At age 60 I might drop it to 18 or 19, or just shift the work to be less like work and more coaching, planning, networking, speaking, etc. Activities I regard more as fun than work.
I will not let a government dictate that I stop adding value to society, nor stop developing meaning and purpose in my own life, especially at an arbitrary age. I don’t plan to retire; I plan to make the most with what I have and live life to the fullest, at every stage of my life.
I hope you’ll consider the same.
Note: This article was primarily inspired by this TED article
