In January, the first of the baby boomers reached age 62 and became eligible for Social Security. And every day, on average, about 8,000 people in the US turn 60. So it's little wonder that lots of folks are trying to change retirement.
What are they doing? Some are working on ways for older people to live independently longer. Others are working to change the way people live when they can't be independent. And some are trying to make sure your money lasts as long as you do.
They're all worthwhile efforts. But maybe the best way to change retirement is to retire the whole concept of retirement. The notions that people may not have as much to contribute anymore, that they're not as needed, and that they're likely to decline gradually (or not so gradually) are, at base, bogus.
"God expresses in man the infinite idea forever developing itself, broadening and rising higher and higher from a boundless basis," Mary Baker Eddy writes in the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (p. 258). There's no retirement in that. Each one of us actually is God's idea, and we can naturally just keep on developing and developing, expressing and experiencing good in more and more ways. Mrs. Eddy also writes (Science and Health, p. 246),Chronological data are no part of the vast forever. Time-tables of birth and death are so many conspiracies against manhood and womanhood. Except for the error of measuring and limiting all that is good and beautiful, man would enjoy more than threescore years and ten and still maintain his vigor, freshness, and promise. Man, governed by immortal Mind, is always beautiful and grand. Each succeeding year unfolds wisdom, beauty, and holiness.
And she adds a couple of pages later, "Men and women of riper years and larger lessons ought to ripen into health and immortality, instead of lapsing into darkness or gloom" (Science and Health, p. 248).
Life is eternal. We should find this out, and begin the demonstration thereof. Life and goodness are immortal. Let us then shape our views of existence into loveliness, freshness, and continuity, rather than into age and blight.
What's the basis for all this? Consider Christ Jesus' startling statement "Before Abraham was, I am" (John 8:58). From a chronological perspective, Abraham had lived centuries before Jesus, but Jesus knew he had a spiritual life that was eternal, timeless, dateless. His spiritual nature had always existed. Each one of us has this eternal spiritual nature too. As the Bible puts it, "The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. . . . Then I was by him, as one brought up with him . . ." (Prov. 8:22, 23, 30). We all have the same source, God—whom Jesus referred to not just as his Father but as "Our Father" (Matt. 6:9). God is Life itself, and each one of us reflects or expresses that Life that is God. God, Life, doesn't decline or get less useful, so we don't either. We don't need to give in to the notion that we can have a good life for only so many years. As Jesus also said, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly" (John 10:10). We all have abundant life, eternal life, and we can experience the benefits of that right here and now.
None of this, of course, is meant to suggest that material, biologically based life is the be-all and end-all of existence. It's not. In fact, it's not existence at all. As we have the humility to let God be expressed through us, we'll see more and more that material life isn't the reality it appears to be. We'll better grasp that matter and diminishment have no real hold on us. We'll find "wisdom, beauty, and holiness" and "health and immortality" rather than "age and blight" or "darkness or gloom." We'll find the life that is an expression of Life.
The best way to change retirement? Get rid of it and keep developing from a boundless basis.
Link
The Wall Street Journal — "12 People Who Are Changing Your Retirement" (subscription required)
