Aging

Last Man Standing

Racing to the far end of the bell curve.

Sunset at Pacific Beach Washington.
Sunset at Pacific Beach Washington. (Photo: leonotenboom.com)

I’m only 67 as I write this, but I’m more and more finding myself the oldest person in the room. (I almost put the “only” in quotes, since of course perspectives on whether that’s “old” or not vary fairly dramatically. Smile)

It’s pretty easy to rationalize this. After all, younger people are being created at a pretty decent clip every day, and, as harsh as it might sound to say it, older people are dropping at a similar (technically slightly slower) rate. It’s only logical, it’s only math, that I might be traveling to the far right of the curve.

And yet.

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On Aging and Loss

The bell curve of aging.
(Image: canva.com)

We all want to live a long and healthy life. We want to be the ones making it far through the bell curve of life expectancy. I know I do.

There’s an unanticipated problem with succeeding.

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Retirement is Obsolete

Midjourney AI: "an empty rocking chair on a porch with an elderly man running through a field in the distance"
Midjourney AI: “an empty rocking chair on a porch with an elderly man running through a field in the distance”

I “retired” in 2001 at 44, after an 18-year career at Microsoft.

There was a spreadsheet (in Excel, of course) that calculated I was done. The meteoric rise of the Microsoft stock price and the serendipitous timing of my joining came together to give me options (including literally stock options), for which I am forever grateful.

However.

I was recently reading some articles discussing the traditional transition from the work-a-day world — aka a “job” — to a world of leisure and choice — aka “retirement”.

I was getting increasingly uncomfortable with the assumptions and preconceptions of what it means to retire.

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