It’s THE dream for many.
Not having to wake up while still groggy. No commute. No going to work. No office politics. No more TPS reports.
Wake up late, pour a cup of coffee, relax, and DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
And it’s going to be GLORIOUS.
And that right there, is the biggest lifestyle myth about retirement.
The whole “do nothing” dream is nothing but a typical knee jerk reaction to constantly being exposed to one extreme end of the work lifestyle scale for 40 years.
It’s akin to a person who’s starving and dreams of gorging on an expensive all you can eat buffet and thinks that will be heaven if he did that all the time.
The first couple bites are divine, it’s glorious, but eventually you become satiated.
You imagined how great it would be and when you actually got there and time passes by, you forget that initial feeling of how glorious it would’ve been and that’s replaced with what it actually feels like now, with some time having passed and you acclimating to the current situation.
Now what?
You did not fight a million to one odds to be born in this day and age of limitless possibilities with the entire history of the world’s knowledge in the palm of your hand or on a 15 inch rectangle that can be accessed instantly in order to do what?
Nothing?
Seems like such a waste.
That’s not to say that doing nothing isn’t important. It is. We need time to recharge.
But it has its place on the peripheral of our life, not in the center.
It’s not the main course.
It’s too bad that the word “work” has such a negative connotation to it nowadays. People associate it with slavery, prison, an unfortunate activity to do that’s needed to survive.
Work is a good thing. There is something inside of us that needs to do it. It feeds us in a way no other activity can.
It gives us psychic income. It makes our relaxation, our “doing nothing”, that much more sweeter.
So perhaps instead of using the word work, maybe a better way to describe it is to create or contribute. That’s essential when it comes to retirement.
Now there are those who rail against “working” of any kind in retirement. If you’re working in any way, you’re not truly retired they say. You don’t deserve that label.
Often, they just want to defend their position of doing nothing. They still haven’t found their thing so in an effort to keep everybody in their “group”, they rail against working out of fear that they may be missing out on something by doing nothing all the time.
Others who have found what to do may feel guilty during retirement. They think maybe they should be relaxing so that kind of thinking of railing against work of any kind can actually stunt their growth.
Think of people that have made MORE THAN ENOUGH money they can use for the rest of their lives.
Why do they keep making movies, why do they keep on writing, acting, spearhead philanthropic ventures, build new businesses, mentor, teach, speak, pursue new projects, etc.?
Why aren’t they on a beach sipping margaritas for the rest of their lives?
Because they know what the biggest lifestyle myth about retirement is.
They know doing nothing or just leisure 24/7 is not as appealing or fulfilling as it sounds.
Now think of the people who also have that kind of money but choose to do nothing. Just leisure, just pleasure, just fun 24/7.
Over time, it’s not a pretty picture and they’re always a couple cautionary tales of people like that in the news.
There is something healthy, something even glorious about learning, creating, contributing, of seeing something in our imagination come into reality, of helping others, of knowing that other people are benefiting from our creations and contributions.
It feeds us in a way that food can’t.
And if you can make some extra money from doing that, great! There’s nothing wrong with that. And if not, that’s OK too.
And the crazy thing is there’s no need to wait till retirement to find that. So many people slog away looking forward to retirement, to doing nothing, or maybe looking for their thing, only to die within months of retirement.
It’s like that saying of living as if you’re never going to die, but you die never really having lived.
Even if you’re working in a job you don’t like, you still have time to ponder what you want to learn, what you want to create, what you want to contribute.
Now when you’re retired, you don’t have to do that 24/7, but it has its place just as doing nothing, hobbies, socializing, etc., does in your life. Having that “work” to do will also enhance all those other areas of your life.
But to think you’ll be satisfied doing nothing all the time during retirement as a sort of payback for working 40 years – that’s a recipe for disaster.
Doing is the meat of life. Without that, you won’t feel “full”.
Doing nothing eventually leads to boredom, to apathy, a lack of energy, and a miserable and hopeless view of life. It’s not a healthy state of mind to be at.
