Retirement age was recently raised to 70 in Denmark, but I’m honestly not even that pissed off about it, because I think it might finally be the key for people to understand and act upon something that is much more important:
Retirement is not and has never been the carrot on a stick that excuses wasting most of your life on working.
There’s no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for those who choose to endure 50 years of wage slavery. The cake is a lie, and if you didn’t get it before, you’ll surely get it now that the promised retirement is getting pushed further and further away. Fuck retirement. You’ll likely never get to it, so you need to live now.
You need to make your life worthwhile through the entirety of it. If that life includes paid work, you need to make paid work worthwhile.
Sure, it’s a lot of work in itself to make the conditions for your paid work better, but we have to start demanding just that and it’s really easy to get started: Join a union.
I retired at 34. By that I mean I quit working and plan on dying instead of going back
34 currently and just came out of retirement, as I see. I was my mom’s caregiver. Got paid through the state to hang out with my best friend, the person I love most in the world. We were broke, just barely made more than the bills, enough to splurge on a 30-50 dollar item in a month… But honestly, my life was perfect. She passed away in April, and while going back to work isn’t the thing that sucks most about all this, standing on concrete floors at a gas station with plantar fasciitis and being generally fucking miserable isn’t helping. I just want my mom and my life back
I don’t have any advice, but I can empathize. No one should have to deal with all the bullshit we do in this world.
Fuckin hell.
I…uh…wow. Wishing you the best. Those words seem vapid. Let me know if I can help.
Time machine or a benevolent necromancer?
best we can do is 82
-GOP, soon
We (germany) aim for 67 currently. While it already was waaaay too high before. Work your whole damn life to finally do everything you ever wanted…if your body would still allow it that by then. Mehr, what a horribly bad concept.
jfc
every day i feel fortunate and privileged that i lived my life backwards-- i did the whole go apeshit and enjoy the fuck out of life in my 20s, then start getting “serious” about a career. i can’t imagine how miserable i would have been by now if i’d gone straight4 from community college to a 4 year, to grad school, and then straight to “grownup” job without having gotten my “midlife crisis” out of the way when i was young. yeah, i’ve always been one notch above broke, but if i’m destined to work until death, at least some part of my life was awesome
Yeah exactly. You did your best in the best time…though one could argue which is the best time. i was a dumb fuck in my 20s, but i enjoyed everything even more :-)
And yes, backwards sounds a lot better than the usual stupid model which wants to grind you to pieces and THEN throw you out to live in p(i/ea)ce(s). “A notch above broke” isn’t bad if you get what you want out of life with the minimum amount of work. I know people who have it all and still want more and more while still always being miserable.
I did retire somewhere between 25 and 30, I don’t even remember as it was nearly equally long ago… Should’ve been earlier though 😁
On a serious note, at least it’s good to see that zoomers don’t seem to eat the corporate bullshit without questioning it anymore. We genX and those before us were just brainless yes-sirs who thought that hard work will pay off one day.
Damn. How’d you do that, if you don’t mind the question?
A bit of wtf mixed with incredibly stupid ideas (fuck highschool) together with slightly better ideas (become selfemployed) and a hint of undeserved luckery. No kids help a lot too ,-) Could tell you t’was “hard work” or such crap, but that’s stupid survivorship-bias. Never worked hard. Only ever did the absolute bare minimum of work required. Unless I had fun doing it, that is. So, I could’ve also failed horribly and be piss-poor under a bridge now. My parents even tried to achieve that (silly me employed them both). One different choice here or there. Life is fucking strange.
But I also don’t need much, no fancy brand-clothes-shit, no fancy cars, no fancy houses, and only one hobby that’s on the more expensive side (Gaming). If it weren’t for wifey I wouldn’t even need more than one room ,-) Know people who have 10x what I have and only complain they have so little and work themselves to death 16hrs a day in their 50s. Lol. To each their own.
Also I lied, i actually do work 1-3 days a week. I just don’t get paid for it and basically just give back to those less fortunate (a local shelter-thingie where victims of rape/abuse/violence/torture end up broken and alone)
Haha I’m right there with you on living with the essentials only. Saving is probably my biggest hobby, even when I don’t necessarily need to.
I’ve been self employed for the last decade myself, although I’m on a good track for retirement I’m not quite there. I’ve had or been a part of 3 businesses at this point, but 2 are now shuttered and the remaining takes up all my time.
What industry were you in, if you don’t mind me asking?
Hey at least self-employed still beats working for some other guy’s retirement. Fingers crossed tho ;)
It was IT retail/wholesale. But at a time where you still could. Were one of the first with an Onlineshop. Also one of the first web-designers. Being an old fart has some slight benefits.
Morgan Freeman narrator voice:
It didn’t. Well, except for me. I have a highly desirable deep voice that guarentees I can name my price for the work I do. Then I go to lunch where everyone adores me. Imagine that. Imagine being so beloved that 22 year old college girls scream, and ask you to sign their breasts, all just because I’m there to buy a wheat bagel. I can tell you, it’s nice. Sometimes it’s annoying. Then I remember I could be like millions of others. Working hard in a factory without air conditioning for pennies. That’s what makes me appriciate life. The fact that it’s so easy, and the money is endless if you don’t work hard. Now get back to work. I have a bagel to enjoy, and big beautiful breasts to see.
Is that a monologue in a movie by any chance? Infeel like it’s some sort of fight club-esque reference but can’t
It’s just a parody of Morgan Freemans entire career/life.
If only that would’ve ever happened…22yr old college girls only screamed at my weirdness :) But i had a bagel once.
This is too real for my 35 y/o self.
I often hear from people that “the youth” doesn’t want to work anymore. And they also talk about me low key, even tho i’m 40. And they tell me wild shit like “kids” don’t want to work overtime and crap like that. Just because they licked the boots of every boss they ever had. And they could raise a family and buy a house working at a kiosk. If you work your ass off these days in a kiosk, best case scenario is that you are able to rent an okay apartment and maybe a car at the same time. I know so many boomers that are super incompetent and while they all worked, they never had “good high paying” jobs, like some pharma dude or something. All blue collar workers. And they are all retired at 62 and live in a sometimes very nice house with two or three cars. Which is unthinkable these days.
I’m 41 and it hits hard.
I’ve never worked a day in my life and i already gave up
I’m fine with working longer I just want to not need to try hard
