Do I Really Want to Work to 90?
Is it a better decision to downsize, reduce your standard of living and retire, OR to continue learning, repurposing your expertise and keep working on what you love? Do I Really Want to Work to 90?
Recently Linda Sherman @LindaSherman asked me to a write a guest post for BoomerTechTalk blog during a discussion on a recent twitter #blogchat hosted by @MackCollier ….it all started when I tweeted something about working until 90! I later discovered this to be quite a controversial subject; retirement….
Check out my post on retirement lifestyle planning even if you are not ready for retirement just yet, and even if this sounds like a boring subject, it’s not!
The inspiration for my post was an entrepreneur whom I mentor. Marion is close to retirement age (whatever that is), and I have been mentoring her to become tech savvy, both in business and her personal life. She builds homes for very discriminating clients, and learning to manage with modern tech has really paid off; this got her to thinking that maybe she should continue working, because she can, and because she loves what she does.
Typical of the homes Marion builds. This is a summer home for an architect client himself; with a decidedly green focus.
In contrast, apparently a significant number of people believe that it is better to reduce their standard of living so that they can retire early and stop working! I personally don’t agree with this, but then I’m biased; I plan to work till I’m 90! (or some far off distant age when I can’t find my keyboard any longer…..)
We’ve seen dialogue on the blog itself as well as Google+
What do you think? Are you really good at what you do? Are you dying to retire? (pun-ishment). Do you need help re-purposing your expertise? If so, please join our conversation on BoomerTechTalk
CASUDI Designing Success.
August 13th, 2012 at 7:54 am
Great, thought-provoking post! I’m in my mid-40s, and am looking forward to “retirement” someday. But perhaps I define “retirement” in a different way than other readers. To me, retirement is about having the flexibility both financially, temporaly and physically to do what I want with my days. It doesn’t mean that I stop earning money. It simply means that I have the freedom to choose how and when I do that based on my interests, not on the driving need of my ever-hungry bank account. So, while I do plan to retire, I don’t anticipate spending too many days in my rocking chair. 🙂
August 13th, 2012 at 8:42 am
That’s exactly my point. Marian no longer involves herself in actually building the houses, climbing ladders and swinging hammers (difficult to do when you are in your 70s and 80s, though not impossible) but using Tech she can manage and actively still have a lucrative house construction business.
I like how you say retirement is having the freedom of choice to do what you want to do, but to many of us this means working and earning to allow this to happen. The goal is to work at something you can do and enjoy doing and Tech is most often the “key” to this. Thanks so much for your comment a real pleasure to have you visit Designing Success.
August 13th, 2012 at 11:48 am
Such is the root of my aversion to “work-life-balance.” Balance requires equal, yet opposite forces. Inherent in that mentality is the separation of work and life; as if to suggest we are all merely cogs in the corporate machine. I aspire to work-life-parallel, where the work enriches our lives, and the line between business and pleasure fades.
If we are smart with our money today, we can be more selective with how we earn it tomorrow. The only people with a problem “working until 90” are those who chased the paycheck over passion.
August 14th, 2012 at 6:44 am
i love how Tara described retirement and I dont think of that as retirement but rather achieving financial freedom which can be achieved at any time in your life!
Brian, could you hear me saying YES to everything you said?
I think for many people Retirement = the promise of freedom — freedom could be defined as in to do what you want when you want, from obligations to people or things you dont really care about, from having to go to a job you don’t love or work in a construct (eg 9-5).that feels confining, etc.
What if we don’t have to wait for retirement to live our own definition of freedom? I have no idea how long I will need to work for money, but I have already created a life filled with freedoms for which I a grateful every day. Work for me is not something I think I will ever feel a need to escape from. The construct of a job led to the construct of retirement as we know it now. For those of us who don’t consider our work a job regardless of the structure of our work arrangement have nothing to free ourselves from. So why not “work” until your 90?
Thanks for a thought provoking post Caroline!
August 17th, 2012 at 6:57 am
[…] Do I Really Want to Work to 90? Such is the root of my aversion to “work-life-balance.” Balance requires equal, yet opposite forces. Inherent in that mentality is the separation of work and life; as if to suggest we are all merely cogs in the corporate machine. I aspire to work-life-parallel, where the work enriches our lives, and the line between business and pleasure fades. […]