Retirement is a dangerous myth
I’m convinced that the retirement myth is one of the ways we get conned into working too much now.
I’m not against work, but I’ve seen enough burnout to say that too much work is definitely bad.
If you come to the realization that work in itself isn’t evil, you can stop living your life as a waterfall-planned software project too. No need to divide your timeline on earth into the false dichotomies of Sucky Work Era and Blissful Retirement Era. Instead, you can just fill your life with a balanced mix of activities that you can sustain for decades.
– David Heinemeier Hansson
I have a book on personal finance, which defines work as the process of trading your life for money. Overall I think it’s a good book. And I think that it makes a good point, which is that you are trading your life for money, so whenever you buy stuff you don’t need, you’re paying for that with a piece of your life that you can’t ever get back.
But I think work can be interesting, engaging, and ultimately meaningful. So, I’m glad that I have a job that lets me trade my time for money, intellectual challenge, and meaning. And I’m working to achieve financial independence, not so that I can quit working, but so that I can do more meaningful work.
I also think Dave is right to suggest that you shouldn’t be waiting until requirement for life to get good. I also recently read The Four Hour Work Week, and while I’m not sold on every idea in the book, I do think mini-retirements make good sense in a world where I could easily live to be 100, or I could die next week. I think it’s important to make a good life now, taking time out from work to relax, because I might very well need to keep working even into my 90’s.
Unfortunately, all of this is very hard for me to put into practice. I work too much, and I dance on the knife-edge of burnout all the time. But I’m making progress. I work less now than I did 4 months ago, and I’m more engaged in the work that I’m doing, and that has made a huge difference in quality of life.
It’s been a couple of years since I left a company that was sold on the 60+ hour work week, and where I definitely danced right on over the burnout line, and I’m committed to not going back.
Not even if you wave the carrot of “early retirement” in front of me.
My most to least favorite situations:
1. working like a madman on fascinating problems with brilliant people that I get along well with.
2. having a low-paying and non-stressful job that leaves me with a lot of energy to do my own thing
3. killing myself for a paycheck, even if it’s a really fat one.
In general, I’m happier as the student rather than the brave leader.
Excellent post, Mark!
This remember me a Bertrand Russel´s essay: “In Praise of Idleness”.
Okay, it seems to be a utopic view, but is a good reading for get insights about these problems. I didn’t read “The Four Hour Work Week”, but I think they suggest similar things, but the first one is more philosophical
Bruno,
I read ‘In Praise of Idleness” quite a while ago, and had forgotten about it. I agree that it makes a good point about how we’re able to produce enough to fill our needs with less and less effort, and yet we’re spending more and more time working, so something must be wrong.
The urge to consume is probably innate on some level, but it’s also socially reinforced, in ways that are quite dangerous to our health, our environment, and other people. It’s certainly counter intuitive that working less — and thus creating and consuming less — might be the key to making the world better.