Lots of people (especially in the higher paying segments of the work force) dream of retirement -- the earlier the better. But what is retirement, really? For many people, they are more active after that change-in-subject-title than before. For others, it can mean doing virtually nothing. So, retirement is not a matter of activity.
For me, retirement is closely related to the division between work and play (which also relates back to a work life balance). Work is what you "have" to do. Play is what you "want" to do. For some people, work and play are the same thing as they enjoy what they are doing so much that, even after "work hours", that is the first thing that they would choose to do. For others, work and play are quite separate.
So, what is the distinction between work and play? What marks the boundary between our work periods and retirement? Before retirement, it is required that you perform certain tasks in order to be able to live within our society -- that is called "work". You may get paid money or not -- but doing those tasks allow you (hopefully) to eat, sleep in comfort, be entertained, and continue to live and grow (though not everyone does that well).
There are those who just have to exist -- which, to me, would be extraordinarily boring. Their ability to avoid ongoing "work" is established by the economic rules and/or their family/friends/relatives. The work that has been needed for them to survive is one (or two) steps removed. At some point in the chain which allows them not to work, there are multiple people working to support them. I went into the details of that in an earlier blog.
So, I propose that the main distinction of play or retirement, is that a person no longer has to perform specific tasks to survive in society. Whether or not to do specific tasks are now a voluntary choice. (Yes, there are personal tasks still needed -- sleep, eating, and so forth.) Maybe you love what you have been doing -- you continue to do such (possibly now unpaid) but as a choice. Perhaps you have wanted to do something (and may, or may not, be good at it) but realized that the chances were good that it would not have been sufficient for society to allow you to live (that is, it wouldn't earn enough to pay the bills). (Sometimes people take the leap and it works -- they become that 1 in 10,000 person who makes a living at those tasks.)
Some people, never reaching the situation where they do not have to continue working -- day to day -- to survive, will never retire. Some people believe that they have reached that point and circumstances change such that they have to return to the working side of the boundary. But, in all cases, a person will be able to recognize that they have achieved retirement if they now are choosing whether or not they will perform those non-personal tasks.
