Radically Rethinking Our Life Stages.
My friend, MarketWatch Editor-in-Chief Jeremy Olshan, posed the following inquiry that I found provocative: “Laura Carstensen at Stanford’s Center on Longevity has argued that we should abolish retirement and spread periods of work, education and sabbatical throughout our lives, abandoning the old school/work/retirement timeline. She recently asked me if I’d be willing to give up the chance to retire in the future in exchange for a four-day workweek now.”
Millennials have much to teach us in this respect as they disavowed the tyranny of the three-stage life (learn, earn, retire) early in their lives. And, of course, the pandemic has opened our eyes to new possibilities as well. Here are five life-rethink questions to consider:
Are you willing to take a gap year, at minimum, once per decade until the end of your working life?
If you could go back to school for a year, what subject would you study and how might you utilize that knowledge in your life?
How are you saving to give you the financial breathing room to have a less linear life?
How would you live if you knew you had only five to ten years left?
(And Laura C’s question again) Would you be willing to give up the idea of retirement in the future in exchange for a four-day workweek now?
Here are some of my thoughts on how I might radically rethink my life if I might live another forty years (as reference, I’ve included a video from half a year ago as well as one from just a few days ago).
