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Life should not be about work and productivity. Retirement at 80? This researcher has totally lost touch with the reality of society outside of Silicon Valley.

smt88 8y ago
She's advocating almost the exact opposite of the stereotypical Silicon Valley model. This is the fourth paragraph of the article: > "Rather than a four-decade professional sprint that ends abruptly at 65, Carstensen argues, we should be planning for marathon careers that last longer but have more breaks along the way for learning, family needs, and obligations outside the workplace."
ataturk 8y ago
Retirement at 80? Both my in-laws are gone, both cancer victims, one died at 67, the other 74. My mother is 81 with severe dementia, she doesn't know who I am. My father, the only really left standing, has two hip replacements and one knee, and has had a quadruple bypass operation as well. He thinks he can still work, but the reality is that he can barely care for himself and my mother at all. Now, based on talking to my parents off and on for the last couple of decades, I can assure you that what I stated above is not at all unusual, not in the least. My dad has outlived his entire cohort of friends and associates. All of them are already dead. So, can we please get back to reality on the whole work thing? You aren't going to be working at age 80. Almost nobody is capable of doing so, the ones who do are the far outliers. I often wonder how guys like Trump, a man in his 70s, can be so energetic knowing what I know about absolutely everyone else that I know who is in their 70s? It makes zero sense. Warren Buffett is another weird outlier. Just retire already. My plan is to retire as absolutely soon as possible and work part-time if I need to. Health insurance is the one stumbling block in the US, it's damn expensive and getting worse each year and will have to hit a breaking point sooner or later. I took 3 months off from work last year--quit a consulting gig and didn't take another job. It was great, but also nerve-wracking to get re-employed after that. I found myself having to explain way too much about why I did that. Another anecdote: I've been visiting with a career counselor. So far my biggest takeaway from that is that most people who write code for a living go to a career counselor because they don't want to write code for a living anymore. Not one person counseled towards tech! And here I am, trying to squeeze a few more years out of a programming career!

smt88 8y ago

She's advocating almost the exact opposite of the stereotypical Silicon Valley model. This is the fourth paragraph of the article: > "Rather than a four-decade professional sprint that ends abruptly at 65, Carstensen argues, we should be planning for marathon careers that last longer but have more breaks along the way for learning, family needs, and obligations outside the workplace."

ataturk 8y ago

Retirement at 80? Both my in-laws are gone, both cancer victims, one died at 67, the other 74. My mother is 81 with severe dementia, she doesn't know who I am. My father, the only really left standing, has two hip replacements and one knee, and has had a quadruple bypass operation as well. He thinks he can still work, but the reality is that he can barely care for himself and my mother at all. Now, based on talking to my parents off and on for the last couple of decades, I can assure you that what I stated above is not at all unusual, not in the least. My dad has outlived his entire cohort of friends and associates. All of them are already dead. So, can we please get back to reality on the whole work thing? You aren't going to be working at age 80. Almost nobody is capable of doing so, the ones who do are the far outliers. I often wonder how guys like Trump, a man in his 70s, can be so energetic knowing what I know about absolutely everyone else that I know who is in their 70s? It makes zero sense. Warren Buffett is another weird outlier. Just retire already. My plan is to retire as absolutely soon as possible and work part-time if I need to. Health insurance is the one stumbling block in the US, it's damn expensive and getting worse each year and will have to hit a breaking point sooner or later. I took 3 months off from work last year--quit a consulting gig and didn't take another job. It was great, but also nerve-wracking to get re-employed after that. I found myself having to explain way too much about why I did that. Another anecdote: I've been visiting with a career counselor. So far my biggest takeaway from that is that most people who write code for a living go to a career counselor because they don't want to write code for a living anymore. Not one person counseled towards tech! And here I am, trying to squeeze a few more years out of a programming career!