by Matt Weik, BS, CSCS, CPT, CSN
When people talk about retirement, it truly makes me feel uncomfortable. Maybe I have some screws loose? Or perhaps I just love the grind, the work, and what I do. Either way, you’re not going to find me retiring. The goal for many is to retire and never have to work again. That’s just not me.
Why do I say that?
I truly believe that when you retire, you expire. To put it more bluntly, you’re basically jumping into a grave the day you stop working.
Morbid? Maybe? Truthful? I truly believe so.
In this article, I want to lay out my case as to why you should rethink your strategy to retire and why it may be a better option to keep working (even if it’s only part-time).
Slow Mind and Body… Quick Death
There are so many people out there who think social security is going to be their retirement plan, and they can live the rest of their life without a care in the world. I think that’s a bunch of crap. I’m only 42, and I don’t think social security will even be around when I hit that ripe old age.
Sadly, many Americans have no retirement plans and barely have $400 in savings accounts.
But more importantly, I want to enjoy my entire life. I don’t want to get sick, be confined to a wheelchair, or lose my independence. It’s for that reason I plan on exercising and eating a healthy diet until the day I expire.
Health and fitness are completely brushed to the side for many people until they have a health scare. And at that point, they only do the minimum requirement to regain what they lost. More often than not, once they regain whatever they lost, they’ll go back to their bad habits and forget about exercise and diet again.
I look at getting old in two ways: You can either make the most of it and get the most out of it, or you can become sedentary and have your body start shutting down.
When you think of old people, what’s typically the first thing to go? Their mind, right? I don’t have some study to show this in front of me (I’m sure there’s actually one out there), but I’m sure that those who stop working see a massive decline in cognition and brain health because they aren’t using their brain like they would if they were working.
I believe the same can be said about the body and physical activity.
When you retire, you tend to relax a little more. Perhaps you take some vacations, but you’re not moving or as active as you were when working. Therefore, the body starts to break down. Your heart health declines, you suffer from sarcopenia or muscle loss, your stomach and waist start growing due to lack of movement and activity (because your diet hasn’t changed to match your more sedentary lifestyle), and overall, things just don’t work the way they used to.
When you think about excess weight gain due to not changing dietary habits when you retire and are less active, putting on body fat will absolutely increase your risk of health issues and disease. That all makes sense, right?
I want to exercise up until the day my heart finally stops. I want to be working and running businesses up until the day I take my last breath. Why? It’s my life. It’s what brings me life. It’s what brings me joy. And more importantly, it keeps my mind sharp and my body moving. All things that can help improve my longevity and independence.
If something were to ever happen to me and I was a burden to someone and they had to take care of me, I’d delete myself from this world. I never want to burden anyone or have anyone take care of me because I couldn’t take care of myself.
Is There Research to Back This Up?
Actually… there is! As I was writing this article, I started wondering if anyone ever looked at this and if there was actually a correlation between retirement and death. Below are some of the findings I’ve found:
- According to the Social Security Administration, retiring exactly at age 62 increases the odds of dying by 23 percent relative to men retiring at age 63 and by 24 percent relative to men retiring at age 64.
- The Social Security Administration also published a working paper that said, “Links Between Early Retirement and Mortality (ORES Working Paper No. 93), the author used cross-sectional Current Population Survey (CPS) matched to longitudinal Social Security administration data and found that men who retire early die sooner than men who retire at age 65 or older.”
- Forbes published some findings that mentioned the average remaining lifespan for a 65-year-old woman is 19.66 years, reaching 84.66 years old in total. The remaining lifespan for a 65-year-old man is 16.94 years, reaching 81.94 years in total.
- Harvard Business Review published an article that mentions a study showing that while the relationship between when you retire, and longevity is still developing, most of the research shows that delayed retirement helps reduce mortality.
I don’t know about you, but I’d say my theory about living longer by not retiring makes sense, and the research even backs it up. So, I guess I don’t need to convince myself anymore about it. Now, I just need my family to understand why I’ll be working until the day I die, around the age of 110 (LOL).
