I recently read an article by Dr. James Dobson, in which he talks about the opportunities we miss in our Western cultural mindset of retirement. He talked about a retirement center “where the residents spent most of their time playing cards, pickleball, shuffleboard, and drinking heavily at parties. For them, life was like being on a perpetual cruise ship, where leisure had become an obsession. Most of these people had retired early to capture what they perceived as ‘the good life.”
Yet, I meet more and more retired individuals who thought they wanted “the good life,” only to discover that they have become bored with it. It was fun for a while but it was not satisfying. They missed the sense of accomplishment that they were used to in their career fields or perhaps the impact they had in people’s lives.
As I point out in my book Living on Purpose: Knowing God’s Design for Your Life, retirement is not a biblical concept. Now please don’t misunderstand me – I am not saying you should work 40 or 50 hours until you drop. As we age, we certainly slow down and most don’t have the stamina to continue at that pace – nor should we. But must we go from operating at 70 miles per hour to a dead stop? Is that even healthy for us?
Next time I want to look at a different approach that just might re-energize retirement, giving it a whole new look.