On the March 12 episode of his show, Ben Shapiro touched a nerve, sending shockwaves through the online world. He suggested that retirement is a terrible idea and no one (or at least very few people) should ever do it.
Unfortunately, his tactless word choice, upset a lot of people partly because such a contention brings to mind the terrible images of working in the first major factories of the Industrial Revolution, where employees were exposed to hazardous conditions, ultimately dropping dead only to be replaced within the hour.
Shapiro’s comments also ruffled feathers because of his current social status. Unfortunately, many people today do not determine whether opinions are valid based on their inherent truth, but rather based on the current social status of the person expressing the opinion. People look at Shapiro now, with his wealth and comfortable job, and see only what they call easy work. They don’t see where he came from and the effort he exerted to get there in the first place.
Perhaps my situation, as someone working one blue-collar job and one job for which I am not getting paid, will grant my opinion more authority in some minds.
What Is Retirement?
First, let us define our terms. What do we mean by retirement? Some people “retire” from one job they did not enjoy but which they had to do in order to feed their family, and transition into another job that they enjoy and that requires less responsibility. But that is not what we mean by retirement, as that person is still working. Though there may not be a financial necessity to work, work is still being done. Retirement, on the other hand, involves abandoning work entirely, relying on social security to take care of yourself, and collecting sea shells on a beach somewhere, as John Piper would put it.
What Does Healthy Retirement Look Like?
So, what do people like Ben and I mean when we say people shouldn’t retire? We are simply saying that one should follow the former path rather than the latter. The latter, and widely accepted, idea of retirement is one that is detrimental to a person’s health on an individual level and decaying on the societal level. (If you want the in-depth math and statistics on the matter, you can find them in Ben’s follow-up show on March 13).
On the individual level, once a person stops working, he often loses his purpose in life and finds he has nothing to occupy his time. His kids are grown and gone, and with the high rates of divorce, he often doesn’t even have a spouse, and he has no friends and thus so no one to share his time with. He finds himself living in a self-imposed solitary confinement with the whole world as his prison. And people live like this for years on end as the retirement age is 65, but the average life expectancy in the US is 80.
On the societal level, such a system of retirement causes rifts between the generations. The elderly, through government force, are taking the money they need to live from their children and grandchildren rather than earning it themselves. And now, with inflation, they are getting much more out of social security than they ever put in. In addition, the younger generations are less populous, meaning the disproportionate ratio of young taxpayers to older entitlement receivers is making the burden greater to bear for the taxpayers.
So if our current understanding of retirement causes so many issues, the question is how did we get here?
The answer is quite simple: we have come to view work as something evil to be avoided at all costs.
A God-Ordained Purpose
On the contrary, work is God-ordained. It is one of the many ways in which we glorify and worship the Lord in our lives, imitating His work for as He worked, we work. Many know that after the Fall, when Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden, God said to Adam that the ground would grow thorns and thistles and that he (us) would work it by the sweat of his brow.
What is often overlooked, however, is Genesis 2:15: “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.” There was, then, work before the Fall, but there was joy and pleasure in it. There was no sorrow, no back-breaking, no thorns or thistles. In fact, this is one of the many reasons God made man: to glorify Him through our work.
When one looks at work for what it truly is, your perspective completely changes. You cease to work just for yourself or for your family but for the Lord. And the work never stops. In the new heaven and the new Earth there will be work. But it will be work glorified just as we will be. It will no longer be toilsome and painful.
I’m sure you’re wondering, though: why will there be work? It’s the new Heaven and the
new Earth, why can’t everything just be there? As I’ve already said, because it brings glory to God. Just as our singing and dancing, our writing and contemplating bring Him glory, so does the first thing we were ordained to do.
So, take joy in your work. It is what He has called you to do. Look past the money and the pain, the frustrations and the repetitiveness. Instead, look to the Lord. Do your work for Him, for it was given to you from Him. Praise Him in it and never cease from it.
George William is a contributor for American Daily Press. @GeorgeWill2324