The Question of Retirement...

To be able to close each day with a sense of accomplishment is one of the greatest blessings and precious privileges of life, one that entitles a person to sound sleep and sincere satisfaction as few other things do.

But sometimes men work, having foremost in mind the wish to be free from work. Then through some circumstances the time may come when they are, in a sense, free from work and then they find that the idea has much less allure than they had once supposed.

Of course there is such a thing as overwork and too much pressure. And under pressure there is some tendency to swing to the other side and to place a fictitious value on retirement. But the word itself, retirement, sets up a false set of standards if it means inactivity and idleness. There may properly be retirement from some pursuits, a change of activity, a lessening of responsibility, a change of pace or position. But work has been accused of too many ills.

When a man needs a rest, very often it isn’t that he so much needs a rest from work as a rest from worry, a rest from pressure. Men rust out sooner than they wear away; they wither in idleness sooner than they break down in willing useful work.

Friction will wear us away friction with other people, friction within ourselves. Pressure and impatience will do their damage. A bad conscience will wear a man away. Worry will wear a man away. But willing, constructive work, within the limits of one’s health and physical strength and talents and time, is a lengthener of life and a catalyst without which there is little real happiness.

Freedom from work in the sense of doing nothing constructive or of having nothing constructive to do, is a false standard; and unfortunate is the person who has forced time on his hands time that he must fill with forced pleasures and hollow pursuits.

The right to work is a blessing that should gratefully be accepted. And work, itself, with a sense of accomplishment and of usefulness in life, is the surest safeguard against wasting away.