As hard as it is for us to wrap our brains around the fact is that in today's economy, paid retirement (and vacations) are a dying, but accelerating, trend. Let's first take a look at the factors that are killing a workplace tradition, and then logically devise a personal strategy for dealing with at the new reality.

Among the factors that are polishing off paid retirement are robotics, AI, automation, more than 90,000,000 unemployed workers, the death of the Middle Class, crippling personal, corporate, national and global debt, credit tightening, a "gig" economy that is replacing secure lifetime employment, woefully underfunded Pension Funds, and near Zero interest rates that hold interest income--for them and for private investors--far below the seven or eight percent they need to avoid depletion, the news that the Social Security Administration will, by 2022 begin paying out more in benefits than it takes in through worker contributions, and last, the fact that inflation is a pick-pocket who never sleeps and never takes a day off.

Many fingers of blame point at the Fed for it's bank-saving policy that brought Trillions of virtual dollars out of the ethers, recapitalizing the world with a flood of fiat. The saved banks learned nothing but how to salivate for more cheap $$$,$$$,$$$,$$$ to plow into hundreds of Trillions of derivatives.  Corporations, giddy, with Zero Interest Rates, were far less interested in production and job creation than with borrowing billions for stock buybacks and dividend payments.

Prior to WWII I never knew anyone who "retired." When workers became too old or disabled to work for wages, they could still shuck corn, feed the chickens, and shell butter beans on the back porch. But after the War, consumers were ready for better times than The Depression and wartime rationing. The economy boomed, and industries competed for workers by offering more and more benefits, including paid vacation and retirement programs.  Americans got into a "Boom" mentality, and still haven't adjusted to the fact that real income hasn't increased since the late 1970s and that while the dollar still looks and feels the same, it's only worth three cents when you get to the supermarket checkout. Inflation is a mass murderer of retirement plans.

The "Boom" mentality lent itself to the expectancy that the good times would never end, and workers began retiring. saying, "I've worked (X number) of years and I'm never going to hit another tap." So, the myth grew that retirement was not only a reward for having worked so many years, but that it was deserved. Then the notion crept in that retirement was an entitlement--a permanent vacation, an earthly heaven of idleness. 

Let's set ourselves free from the dependency thought that "the government" owes us...and that "the government" will take care of us. Folks, the truth is that the government can't take care of itself. If you are taken care of, it will be because you thought ahead, planned ahead, and realized that you will likely need to work as long as you live. And that isn't a bad thing at all.

Retirement, as an entitlement to lie back and take life easy, seems contrary to the way life, as a spiritual idea, works, and economists, who tend to be materialists, never can account for it. Economists and central bankers want to control economies by controlling the work done in that economy, but work has an intangible, invisible side to it that's impossible to quantify.

The failures of economies and economics stems, in my opinion, from the fact that economists' theories are one-sided skewed by the flawed materialistic assumption that the measurable physical is all there is. At the risk of getting too Platonic, I maintain that all that appears in this world is transported, by thought, from an invisible ideal one. In other words, we spend our lives with minds intimately involved with invisible ideas, which, through thought, are given three-dimensional form and substance. For instance, the cars we drive began at one end of a factory as ideas and came out the other end as Fords, Hondas, Chevrolets, and Beemers.   

The mind activity we call thought is the hardest part of the "work" we do on earth. More humans seem to prefer muscle work to head work. That's why there are fewer employers than employees. It's also why retirement issues concern so many of us. We are spiritual beings expressing through human bodies--not horses to be put out to pasture after the big race. The work we do with --and through --our minds means everything to us, and long after we cease the physical work of moving materials around, our dignity and sense of identity is secured by our ability to work with ideas. But, the undocumented activities inspired by the work we do in our heads with ideas can't be measured and controlled by economists, and becomes a whole different, invisible, unofficial, and personal economy.

Though for decades we've been conditioned to expect retirement, I maintain that given our spiritual nature and human form, we are goal-striving creatures, and are happiest when we have some purposeful activity that we call work, mission, or calling. Retirement can, for decades, look like a desirable goal, but when we attain it, it can seem hollow. My friend, Jimmie Miller, says, "God put man on earth to tend it, not retire in it."

I think it's better for us not to worship retirement as the highest and most ideal attainment. I believe it's better to remain in the flow of life, living, and service. I almost regret retiring at 65, but at the time I was immersed in the mindset that glorified getting a check from Social Security a month after your 65th birthday, But I have to say that I'm doing and enjoying the most creative work--mostly unsalaried--I've ever done. Let me add that the salaried aspect of work has its value and importance, but if there's work that needs to be done, DO it -- whether you get a salary or not. Do the work...because the Universe will see to it that you are paid in most significant ways. You simply can't give without receiving...and the value you receive in terms of health and strength of body, creativity, clear-mindedness, strength, appreciative companions, prospering ideas, and self-esteem may be worth more than financial compensation. Your service may not show up on the US GDP, but the government doesn't have a set of books for recording the value of your contribution to your personal economy.

I see, right here at home, a good example of someone staying "in the flow" of life after retirement. My wife, Chis, retired a year and a half ago, but she enjoys working PRN with her nurse friends. She is also an artist, and retirement allows her to create more paintings--many of which appear on her web page. Retirement has also encouraged her to become an art teacher--something she's wanted to do all her life.

Just yesterday she was saying that sharing her creativity with her students has opened new insights and has expanded her own creativity. She wonders out loud if she'll ever be able to really retire. When I hear that, I know she's still into the old "idleness" theory of retirement, and that she should be patting herself on the back for staying in the flow.

Now, more than ever, we need to "keep on keeping on. I tell people, "If you have a job, don't retire at 62 or 65. Keep working and put every dollar you can into a "Family Wealth Fund" which includes gold and silver.

Life on all levels--including our personal economies--is continuing, continuous, and prospering activity: Cause-Effect; Heartbeat-Rest;

Inhale-Exhale; Give-Take. Not Start-Stop. Let's retire as often as we wish, but let's stay in the flow. Keep on "making a living" as long as you live. Never stop enriching your life by generating a flow of income from doing work that stimulates your creativity.