What’s the point of working your ass off during the healthiest years of your life? Then when you’re ready to retire, you’re too old to enjoy it.
Ain’t that America, where we grind it out for 40 years, hoping to get rich or die tryin’.
There are 22 million millionaires in the U.S. And I’ll bet they share the same problems as poor people. We’re all chasing the mirage of “as soon as ____ happens, I’ll be happy.” We measure ourselves by promotions and pay raises, which just fuels more anxiety. So our wallet may get fatter. But that’s no reward for dying at your desk.
Meanwhile, happiness stays just out-of-reach.
Clearly, the pandemic has given us reason to rethink our priorities. Many have taken the advice of Robert Plant who sang, “there’s still time to change the road you’re on.” So, they’re jumping off the corporate ladder and gravitating toward a life that values time, mental health and mobility. They find joy in having a work-life and embrace causes that pull at their heart.
Here’s my take. Lee Abrams passed along a study from the New England Journal of Medicine that gives hope to people who’ve worked off for decades…but aren’t done yet.
The report found the most productive years of our lives are between 60 and 80. The age of most presidents, popes and Nobel Prize winners. By then, we’ve survived corporate politics, raised families, suffered though divorce, replaced a hip. But the fire still burns.
Meet the ‘The New Rich’ who’ve adopted a new lifestyle where inner peace is the new success. Health is the new wealth. Kindness is the new cool.
