Why Retirement Will Be The Death of Happiness
Article Round-Up: 8.13.23
Enjoy this week’s curated round-up of podcasts, articles, and more from the web to help you live a healthier, happier life.
Client Conversations: Life Seasons and New Challenges
Takeaway: In this conversation, one client and I have a raw conversation about getting back on track amidst life’s hardships. We discuss the concept of “life seasons” and what it means for overcoming challenges and personal growth.
It’s completely normal to feel overwhelmed by these new, unseen challenges that present themselves in life. Counterintuitively, the presence of these challenges is a good thing because it means you are actively growing.
Well worth a listen if you find yourself going through some hard times right now.
Featured Thoughts: The Retirement Trap
“How To Avoid The Retirement Trap”
Takeaway: It turns out, most people don’t spend retirement the way they think they will. The most common ways retired folks spend their time include: sleeping, relaxing, and watching tv. This is a far cry from the lofty visions of traveling the world, spending time with family, and restarting those long lost hobbies.
Why does the reality of retirement look so different than our expectations?
One reason, according to Sahil Bloom, is the observation that we create these retirement expectations based on who we are right now: young, full of energy, with lots of aspirations. However, once you enter retirement you’re older, with less energy and less social ties.
The problem with deferring your happiness to a later date is that you miss the opportunity to create these wonderful memories when you can most enjoy them.
The solution, according to Bloom, is to create a life you don’t need to retire from. This means building a life that allows you to enjoy these experiences as you go, instead of holding out for retirement and being completely “responsibility-free.”
Here’s how I conceptualize building this life:
Consider the analogy of life seasons from the above client conversation.
When you’re in a particular season of your life, you have an assortment of opportunities and experiences open to you, based on your interests, vitality, and life circumstances at that time. (Having less responsibility when you’re younger, for example.)
Once that season of life comes to an end, those opportunities and experiences get left behind too. The ones you’ve acted on stay with you, the missed opportunities—gone forever.
While this isn’t completely true (you could still travel the world even once you settle down with a family), it does help provide a sense of urgency to act.
That urgency to take action is what is required to build the life you don’t need to retire from.
Within each chapter of life, I try my hardest to take full advantage of the experiences presented to me.
Young and child-less, I embrace the occasional sleepless night with friends; The spontaneous travel adventure where I don’t have a concrete plan for where I’m going to sleep. That’s my season of life.
With a family, that’ll look like weekend soccer games, movie nights, and mind-numbing loops of Bluey.
The experiences most relevant to your current season of life will be the easiest to fulfill.
But don’t lose hope if you already feel like you’ve missed out on experiences. Those adventures from another season of life are not impossible now, they were just easier then.
To start, consider what season you’re in now and how you can make the most of the experiences in front of you. Then, you can begin to plan how to fulfill those missed opportunities.
The key is to avoid missing out on more happiness-inducing moments because you’ve already missed out on so many. Continuing to defer happiness only creates a happiness debt that you’ll never be able to repay. Instead, make sure you’re not incurring more debt, while slowly paying off what you’ve accrued.
This is how you build a life you don’t need to retire from.
This is how you avoid the retirement trap.
Published This Week:
“Are You Sabotaging Your Weight Loss Efforts Without Realizing It?”
Takeaway: People tend to rely on information that is easily accessible or readily available. This plays a role in health behaviors via influence of food advertising, social norms, and availability heuristics. To overcome this bias and reach weight loss goals, work on being mindful of surroundings, getting educated about nutrition, seeking out support, and building self-awareness.
“Is A 1200-Calorie Diet Actually Realistic?”
Takeaway: If you follow a 1200 Calorie Diet you will lose body fat, but your body is going to toss you a death stare.
Instead, if you slightly bump up your overall calorie intake, add more lean protein, veggies, and whole foods (while still allowing some “just for pleasure” treats so you don’t feel deprived), and incorporate regular strength training, you’ll be able to lose fat without feeling exceptionally hungry and deprived—and even keep it off.
“You’ll feel more satisfied, you’ll mentally feel better, and you’ll physically feel better,” says St. Pierre. “You can still make progress, just in a way that sucks a lot less.”
Happiness and health are tightly interconnected. If you want to work on building a happier life, begin by building a healthier body.
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