Early retirement or late retirement?

We are in a concert Hall. The musicians are already on their seats. A side door opens and everybody stands up as a sign of respect. The conductor, a white haired man, enters dragging his feet. He looks very old, so bent over, that he has to do little effort to bow to the public applause. He approaches slowly the conductor's stand. Once there, he takes seat in a stool: he is so feeble he cannot conduct the orchestra standing up. Should we admire the old man for his stuborness in continue working well into retirement age or should we feel sorry for him?


This strikes a familiar cord with me. I am over retirement age, and continue working. I tell to myself all kind of excuses: I would not know what to do all day without working, I will bore to death, I would probably fall ill out of inactivity, etc.


Frankly I think that retirement is not a conquest of civilisation. To establish a frontier between working life and non working life is totally artificial. More, to establish a frontier between living and working is a nonse.


Most of the people are doing a work that does not satisfy them. Actually, most people hate their work and they distinguish perfectly the time they are toiling (unpleasant) and the time they are out of work (pleasant).

But if you are one of those rare persons who enjoys what you are doing and do not distinguish between working time and living time


In my case, I don't make such a distinction. I'm just living