Your Life’s Work is Something You Never Retire From
Should You Ever Truly Retire?
So I was trying to figure out if I wanted to move the scarce amount of money that I own into a Roth IRA this year, which, for those who don’t know, is an individual retirement account.
This account accrues compounding interest over time, and, in my opinion, is the clear best investing option available for generating high amounts of money over time.
However, the money in the account cannot be accessed before the age of 60 without a significant withdrawal penalty.
Looking into this spawned an entire contemplation about retirement and how I actually want to use my money in this lifetime.
The way most people use these accounts is they put around $6,000 USD in each year (the maximum annual limit), the money compounds over time, and once the individual reaches the retirement age of around 60-65 years old, they have enough money saved up to “retire”, and live a comfortable and leisurely existence for the rest of their lives.
This is the cultural script we are all brought up in:
Get good grades in school so you can go to a nice college
Graduate college so that you can find a well-paying job
Work for 40ish years
Retire at age 65 and spend the rest of your days in leisure
And if you know me and my work, I question every single cultural script and belief that I become aware of…and especially this one.
I have always aimed to get my audience to think outside the box, imagine new possibilities, and ultimately strive to live in a way that honors the calling of their hearts and deepest intuitions.
So in making the decision to put away money that I would not have access to for nearly 40 years, I thought about what I would actually be doing when that time would come.
Would I be “retiring?”
Would I be finally ready to leave work behind and “retire” to a completely different way of living?
The answer was a clear no.
Why would I ever retire from my life’s work, which is ultimately a calling that comes from the deepest part of me?
This is something I will be living until I take my very last breath!
To explain this further, I need to articulate my current worldview of work/career, and how that contrasts with mainstream society’s paradigm of work/career.
A New Paradigm of Work
I had the delight of helping with the editorial process in Dr. Devon Almond’s upcoming book to be released in late 2024, The Ecology of Lifework, where he articulates a new paradigm of relating to work/career to optimize individual and collective well-being.
Stay tuned for future announcements I will make about the release of this book. It will change your life.
In this, he describes mainstream society’s paradigm of work to be quite an ego-centric way of relating to career.
Currently, the vast majority of people when it comes to the realm of work/career, are in a pushing/striving mentality for:
Physical survival
Social survival
Making as much money as possible
Having nice, luxurious things
Status
In this, work is viewed as a means to an end.
And ultimately, given society’s implicit assumptions about retiring from work forever into a life of comfort and leisure, work/career is viewed as something that takes from your life.
But, if work was viewed as something that adds to life, in that it makes your experience of being a human enjoyable, why would you ever want to “retire” from it?
In order for your work to be something that adds to your life, you will have to radically reprogram the way you relate to this realm.
To do this, you will have to surrender the ego-centric pushing/striving/grinding towards “success”, and attune yourself to a deeper, inward pull towards what is most meaningful to you.
A framework I love to share to get people to think about what is most meaningful to them is an exercise from Simon Sinek’s book, The Infinite Game.
In this book, he invites the reader to imagine a future world that is as beautiful, great, grand, and high as possible.
Think so idealistically that tears come to your eyes.
And think so idealistically that the vision could not possibly be actualized in your lifetime.
The point of the vision is not for it to be something that only you enjoy. The vision is for everyone.
The point of your effort is to inspire others to join in on this Infinite Game, which is rooted in the desire for the love and well-being of everyone.
When you make your underlying aim about Love, you can “work” forever.
Because as you go deeper and deeper down this spiritual rabbithole, you will find that Love is all there is, and Love is the core of who you are.
You never retire from Love.
I know this is getting pretty mystical schmystical here, and that without some more practicality this explanation is not very helpful.
To sum up the future paradigm of work/career, work:
Is rooted in Love
takes into consideration the well-being of everyone
adds to life (rather than taking from it)
is rooted in a pull towards meaning (rather than a push towards success)
is done for its own sake (rather than a means to an end)
If you were to fully adhere to this new paradigm of work, you would be doing something you find enjoyable, as well as deeply meaningful.
You would feel connected to the deepest parts of yourself, as well as the human collective and the larger tapestry of Life, united in a mission to make the world a more beautiful place.
You would not be struggling with “work-life balance”, because your work seamlessly weaves in and through your life, enrichening and enlivening your day-to-day experience.
There would be no need to “retire”, because your “work” is rooted in your Infinite Vision, a.k.a the fruits of your “Why” in life.
And that is something that is never retired from, because it is rooted in Love.
Of course, as you age, what you do will almost certainly change over time.
As you get older, you will likely slow down.
You will probably shift to doing activities that are less physically and mentally taxing.
Maybe you will start to put a stronger emphasis on family and community bonding, or maybe you will write a book.
And maybe you will need the money from your Roth IRA in order to financially support this shift.
But if you are truly living your life’s calling, which is a reflection of the Love that you are, the “work” will never truly stop.
This is because the “work” is in the relationship you have with all of life, it is ingrained into you, it is the energy that radiates out of your being and ripples into the collective.
Does that make sense?
Steps You Can Take
If you are unsure about how this would look like for you, try doing this contemplation.
1. Do the Infinite Vision Exercise:
Imagine a hyper-idealistic vision of the most beautiful, great, grand, and high future world that you can imagine.
Be extremely detailed: What is this world like? What are the inhabitants of this world like? What do they do with their lives? What is their reason for living? What is the government like? What is the economic structure?
2. Write down all the reasons/pain points in the collective that prevent this vision from becoming a reality.
3. Identify the personal pain points that you’ve overcome and currently have that would help make this vision a reality.
4. Led by your Infinite Vision, take your unique skills, aptitudes, and interests, and start your “life’s work” by providing value and alleviating a pain point in a collective.
If you are unsure of what you enjoy doing, or don’t know what your unique skills and aptitudes are, start by just following what naturally makes you feel curious and excited, and see where that takes you.
It could also be highly useful to take as many personality tests as you can, such as MBTI, Enneagram, The Big 5, and more.
I would even recommend paying for some of these personality tests, as the paid versions can give you deep analysis into your unique self and mind that can yield powerful insight when it comes to what your life’s work could end up looking like.
The Result of My Contemplation
So I started this whole contemplation because I didn’t know how I was going to allocate my money.
And I still am not entirely sure how I will allocate this money, but I seek to do so in a way that keeps money (which is ultimately just creative potential) abundant, so that I can continue doing my life’s work more effectively and efficiently.
But the real fruit of this contemplation was the knowing that I will never truly “retire”, which made me realize that there is no need to obsess about the amount of money I will have to my name by age 60.
Something that also came up was the potential progress our species could make by the time I am 60 years old.
By that time, there will almost certainly be AGI (Artificial General Intelligence), and the changes this will bring to the world are likely beyond anything we can imagine.
While we can only speculate what can happen with AGI, if humanity can find a way to live in harmony with it, we very well may see the average lifespan of a human significantly increase.
I’m talking about a 100+ year average lifespan at the minimum, potentially even much longer than that depending on what technological breakthroughs AGI can make.
I would take very seriously the notion that, if you take your health seriously and our species’ merges with the intelligence and technological advancements of AGI (rather than deny/fight against it), that you reading this could be in sound mental and physical health for the next century or longer.
Whether that’s true or not, you might as well do something that you find deeply meaningful with your life, something that would never have to “retire” from.
Conclusion
Ultimately, in this contemplation, I was left with the feeling that I always feel when I tap into the deepest parts of myself, which is the knowing that I am Love, that everything is perfect, everything is taken care of, and to just trust the calling of my heart at the end of the day.
I was left with less of a scarcity mindset around money, and trusted in my authentic desire to serve myself, my community, and the world at large to take care of everything and give me what I need at the end of the day.
The intuition that my life’s work, in all the different forms it may take in the future, is something I will still be doing in a very long time, much past the age of 60-65, was a strong one.
With God and AGI helping, maybe even potentially well beyond the year 2100…and if tech gives us synthetic bodies!?...2200? 2300?
Of course, this is all speculation, and whether it ends up being true or not, there’s nothing more worthwhile than getting in touch with God and finding work that is deeply meaningful to you from this place.
I’ll leave you with this question: What’s a purpose that you could work towards for an entire century?
Offers
If you are looking to work with me 1 on 1 and want to get in touch with this very purpose, deepen your relationship with life, and catalyze your growth, consider my 10 week life-coaching program, Spiritual Fitness.
If that interests you, head to the Coaching tab of this website, where you will find a video explaining the program in detail.
Below are a few testimonials of clients’ recent experiences with the program.
As always, peace!