The Meaning and Purpose of Retirement

At "retirement," we all become self-employed -- to do what is most important and meaningful to do -- before we die.

The ultimate meaning of self-employment is hiring yourself for the important job of taking care of oneself.  Many will rise to the challenge -- while a few will realize they've never learned anything that was meaningful (productive) to do, and now they have a fool for a boss.

In this way, retirement is the summation of our existence -- and the real test of what we know, and can do.  If it is not worth doing for themselves, then how important can they be?  Many think that their worth is only what somebody else will pay them to do -- so that when nobody pays them anymore, they think they are worthless, and these things are not worth doing for themselves. But there is nobody more important to give their best to/for -- unless they've never created any value for themselves, and that is what their living has been all about.

They served others first, and lastly, they realize the value of all they have done -- as a fitting, just reward. One gets, what one has given -- and honed their skill at giving, and knows no greater gift to give.  That is the person they are, and the gift they have given to themselves -- all their lives.  That's why it matters -- always to have given one's best, as the only way one knows how to give to any other.

It never was about the money -- but exchanging value for value -- beyond what was expected, always exceeding expectations -- as the way of their own life.  That is the standard of value.  Such people at retirement, enjoy those golden years in return -- as the life they created for everybody else, and the world conveys to them as a senior citizen -- of full entitlement of what the society has created for everybody else, themselves not withstanding.

Thus all the talk of having more than everybody else, should rightfully cease, and one feels content to have what everybody else has -- which is not a life of deprivation and poverty that financial planners would have them believe they need the fortunes they never had before -- as necessary to a happy, healthy life in "retirement."  Nothing changes very much -- except that one has the time to appreciate the person one has been all one's life.

For some, that is not a happy ending -- but it needn't be that way.