Kevin's Watch

So here I am thinking that working is a redundant concept - and figuring that there's better things to do with my life that work for the next 20 years until I retire. And then it struck me. Having a retirement age, of say 65, is a concept that is designed to ensure that our lives are complete failures.

We will eke out a living until we're 65 - waiting for that retirement nest-egg that we've been waiting over 40 years for. How mad is that?

We should actually be seeking to leverage off the fact that there's 7 billion people on earth and that we can make a living off of them -without actually doing anything.

Am I wrong?

Most retired people do a little work here and there, make themselves useful.
I retired at 38, through no choice of my own (thank you psychotic episode) . In that time I have striven for excellence in the things I can do better than others.
This makes me more useful than I was doing things that anyone can do-- ie., flipping burgers.

Vain wrote:So here I am thinking that working is a redundant concept - and figuring that there's better things to do with my life that work for the next 20 years until I retire. And then it struck me. Having a retirement age, of say 65, is a concept that is designed to ensure that our lives are complete failures.

We will eke out a living until we're 65 - waiting for that retirement nest-egg that we've been waiting over 40 years for. How mad is that?

We should actually be seeking to leverage off the fact that there's 7 billion people on earth and that we can make a living off of them -without actually doing anything.

Am I wrong?

I do tend to think that everyone has it the wrong way round. We spend all our time working, fitting everything else in our lives around our work, until we finally reach the point where we don't have to do it anymore. For so many of us, work is the purpose of life. That's wrong. It's one of the reasons I'm reluctant to get into a university lecturing career, even though I should hopefully be qualified for it in a few years. I don't want to live to work. Work should be the thing that enables us to get on with the rest of our lives, and as long as we're able to support ourselves, the less work we do the better. I'm not religious; as far as I know, we only get one shot. Why spend the whole of it in gruelling tedium?

I don't think anyone on their deathbed looks back and thinks "I wish I'd spent more time at work".

Hey, soon as y'all figure out a way to avoid it, lemme know.

--A

Sure Av. If you pay me $1 million I will share my plan with you.

I don't think the intention is to work merely to get by Cov. My view is that it shoud be possible to roll in money without doing any work at all.

Or there's the outrageous prospect that work can actually be fun, or at least enjoyable!

Time was, we'd be out in the fields, planting and harvesting, for a lot more hours than I have to work.

Vain wrote:Sure Av. If you pay me $1 million I will share my plan with you.

Tell ya what...share it now, and when I'm rolling in it, I'll give you the million.

--A

Avatar wrote:

Vain wrote:Sure Av. If you pay me $1 million I will share my plan with you.

Tell ya what...share it now, and when I'm rolling in it, I'll give you the million.

--A

Tell ya what, you both give *me* the money and...well...after that we'll just take it as it comes!

Give her the money
And look for her at E-fest
Lore can just whistle...

Wow this is a difficult one and I've got a feeling that many people won't like my take on it. I go along with Kennedy's 'Ask What you can do for your country, not what your country can do for you' (put fellow men in place of country though).

In life we have a responsibility to try to be net givers rather than net takers. This often means years of drudgery at a seemingly meaningless task which is a bitter pill to swallow in anybody's book. But it remains the case, I'm afraid that you are what you do - like it or not. This means if you do nothing.... well, work it out for yourselves. No life is wasted that eases the burden that someone else is bearing - even if the work is less than satisfying on the face of it (and trust me - there is enlightenment to be found even flipping burgers if it is done long and well enough.) Honest work, contributing a piece to the vast jigsaws that are our societies is never anything to look down on and in this respect the 'burger flipper' is as worthy as the surgeon or judge.
But in the context of the original post - living for the future is for the birds. It does not belong to you any more than does the past. Look after the future a little when you have looked after the present a lot. Today is all you have so use it wisely.

Good post, peter! Of course, you're right, some folks here will disagree...

peter wrote:Wow this is a difficult one and I've got a feeling that many people won't like my take on it. I go along with Kennedy's 'Ask What you can do for your country, not what your country can do for you' (put fellow men in place of country though).

In life we have a responsibility to try to be net givers rather than net takers. This often means years of drudgery at a seemingly meaningless task which is a bitter pill to swallow in anybody's book. But it remains the case, I'm afraid that you are what you do - like it or not. This means if you do nothing.... well, work it out for yourselves. No life is wasted that eases the burden that someone else is bearing - even if the work is less than satisfying on the face of it (and trust me - there is enlightenment to be found even flipping burgers if it is done long and well enough.) Honest work, contributing a piece to the vast jigsaws that are our societies is never anything to look down on and in this respect the 'burger flipper' is as worthy as the surgeon or judge.
But in the context of the original post - living for the future is for the birds. It does not belong to you any more than does the past. Look after the future a little when you have looked after the present a lot. Today is all you have so use it wisely.

Amen!

On the other hand...I've thought for years that my perfect career would be "expert". Expert at what, you ask? It doesn't matter. All I need is to find somebody who will pay me good money to sit on my butt and pontificate all day about this or that to the media.

There are few groups of people more dangerous than 'The Expert'. British prisons are teeming with people wrongly convicted on the strength of 'expert' opinion - and it takes them years to get released if ever. Experts of all stamp herd govornment policy in directions based on fallacious belief or even worse, vested interest - economic, scientific, politic, you name it, and rarely are they called to account for the poor or even negligent advice they give.

No Aliantha - you stay just the way you are. The last thing the world needs is another expert!

peter wrote:Wow this is a difficult one and I've got a feeling that many people won't like my take on it. I go along with Kennedy's 'Ask What you can do for your country, not what your country can do for you' (put fellow men in place of country though).

In life we have a responsibility to try to be net givers rather than net takers. This often means years of drudgery at a seemingly meaningless task which is a bitter pill to swallow in anybody's book. But it remains the case, I'm afraid that you are what you do - like it or not. This means if you do nothing.... well, work it out for yourselves. No life is wasted that eases the burden that someone else is bearing - even if the work is less than satisfying on the face of it (and trust me - there is enlightenment to be found even flipping burgers if it is done long and well enough.) Honest work, contributing a piece to the vast jigsaws that are our societies is never anything to look down on and in this respect the 'burger flipper' is as worthy as the surgeon or judge.
But in the context of the original post - living for the future is for the birds. It does not belong to you any more than does the past. Look after the future a little when you have looked after the present a lot. Today is all you have so use it wisely.

I agree to a point. My brother in law is legally blind and doesn't work for a living. But that doesn't mean he is idle either. He's a musician, and can devote his entire time to it, and in fact has opened up his own recording studio, and frequently gigs. He also is very active in fighting for the rights of the blind, and occasionally goes up to DC to protest or talk with politicians. He's also not one of the foam-at-the-mouth type protestors, and is very good at stringing together arguments intelligently instead of just angrily saying "we want this." So in that regard, while he has "retired," in a sense, he isn't just sitting at home living off taxpayers and doing nothing.

I couldn't agree more that there are more ways to contribute than just going out to work in the traditional sense. Your brother in law is one of those genuine individuals whom the state has a responsibility to provide for whether or not he chooses to use his time usefully or not. It is to his credit that he has found a role where in all likelyhood he will make even more of a contribution to society than most of us sighted individuals manage.