Hi,

This worldview is deeply ingrained in our modern society that life is a long preparation for old age. People are taught to toil endlessly and to sacrifice the present for the promise of security in the future. Work has become not just a necessity but an identity and earning has become the measure of existence. In this quest, men and women have transform into machines that are efficient, tireless but hollow.

I don’t like this view because of so many things. The irony is cruel. After decades of labor and sacrifices, many discover that their earnings are insufficient for true freedom. Their Savings dissolve not into pleasures or adventures but into medical bills and prescriptions when they get retirement with it. Their body, once strong enough to endure the grind, becomes frail, incapable of enjoying the fruits of sacrifice. The promised paradise of retirement reveals itself as a mirage. It becomes a desert of diminished vitality where money is just enough for survival but not for a joyful living.

This worldview is dangerous because it blinds us to the present. It teaches us to postpone spending, and inspires to spend time in work where we defer happiness until a future that is very uncertain. It reduces life to a transaction in which childhood spend on studying hard to get a good job and youth is traded for wealth, but that wealth is traded for medicine in the end and medicine traded for a few more years of existence.

In order to resist this illusion we need to live in the present moment. We have to recognize that life is not a rehearsal for retirement but a journey whose meaning lies in each step. We need a teaching that joy is not a luxury reserved for later years, but a necessity woven into daily existence. To live fully in present time is not a irresponsibility, it is wisdom.

The true wealth of life is not stored in banks but in experiences, relationships and the quiet dignity of living a joyful life. We need to reject the machine-like pursuit of retirement in search of finding the true meaning of existence. Life itself is a treasure and the art of living cannot be postponed until the body is too weary to dance.

With care from Erica.