When the Roosevelt administration brought the concept of retirement to America in the 1920s, the average person lived for about two years after retiring before passing on. Nowadays, the average retiree lives for 20–30 years, a long time by anyone’s standards. If you believe Professor Aubrey De Grey of Cambridge University, if you are under the age of 50 now, you could live to 1,000 years old due to a concept known as longevity escape velocity.

However, retirement is not always the panacea that it is perceived to be. According to one survey, 41 percent of retirees said that retirement was the most difficult adjustment of their life, and most still struggle with the monotony, boredom, lack of purpose, and lack of intellectual stimulation that traditional retirement offers. There is a good reason these retirees are unhappy, and that is because retirement is an unnatural idea, an idea that is not even 100 years old. Up until 1920, people worked until they died unless poor health prevented them from doing so.

So, how does one lead a fulfilling life at retirement when there is only so much golf that can be played and TV that can be watched? The answer, funny enough, is that you should carry on working. The new age of retirement resembles a bell curve rather than a cliff. Rather than jumping off, we will gradually slow down but continue to work.

Working past the “artificial finish line,” which we call retirement, carries with it a number of benefits, including keeping us vital, involved, healthy, connected, stimulated, and mentally sharp. For some people, work is important because it makes them feel that they matter. For others, it is to play an active role in society, and for some, it is because honest labor has a purifying and enlightening quality.

Even if you can afford to retire, the worst thing you can do is withdraw completely from the race. As long as people are civically, socially, and economically engaged, they will refuse to age as their predecessors in retirement did. As George Burns once said, “Retirement at 65 is ridiculous. When I was 65, I still had pimples.”

Source: The New Retirementality by Mitch Anthony