Middle Finger To Retirement
Neo, like the last relic of a forgotten war. Morpheus, once the herald of
truth, now swiping mindlessly on his phone, waiting for a notification that
never comes. This isn’t Zion. This isn’t the Matrix. This is worse, this is
retirement.
No more machines to fight. No more reality to awaken from. Just the slow,
grinding countdown to a number on a calendar: retirement, the grand illusion
they fed you as a kid. Work hard, save up, wait patiently, and one day you’ll
be free. But freedom never comes. Just aching knees, thinning hair, and a
pension check that barely covers the rent.
You were born with a thirst not for water, not for success but for truth. And
truth isn’t something you pick up like a souvenir on the road to old age. It’s
your essence. You are, but you’ve spent a lifetime without the faintest clue
what that means.
The question haunted you from the first breath: Who are you?
And until you face it, until you answer it, no amount of fame, love, pleasure,
or money will fill the hollow you carry. Without it, life is nothing more than
driftwood, tossed on the tides of circumstance.
The first lesson of retirement? Realizing your purpose was never to live it
was to wait. Wait for Fridays. Wait for paychecks. Wait for the weekend. Wait
for retirement. And finally, now, wait for the grave.
The world conditioned you like a machine, whispering that life really begins
at 60 when you finally "earn" the right to do nothing. But when you get there,
the truth hits: the spark’s already gone. The body’s tired, the mind’s
cluttered, and the soul... well, you sold that long ago for job security and
health insurance.
Like billions before you, wandering through life, you’ve avoided the only
question worth asking and you’ll die a stranger to yourself.
Religion lulls you to sleep with bedtime stories: You are a soul, not a body.
Heaven awaits. Science flips the script: You are matter, just flesh and bone.
The soul is a myth for the weak. Two sides, same coin. Both eager to bury your
questions beneath ready-made answers.
From the first time you trusted a parent’s voice, you began stockpiling
beliefs and those beliefs slowly strangled your quest. School polished the
tombstone with facts and formulas. Science handed you a library card and
whispered: Knowledge is power.
Lies. Sophisticated, polished lies
Even now, you hoard knowledge like a miser mistaking dead facts for wisdom.
The very first step was crooked, and everything built on it is destined to
collapse. You never asked: Who the hell am I? And without that question, every
answer you’ve ever swallowed is just recycled noise.
Neo, The One, now believes in lunch breaks. Morpheus, the red-pill prophet,
now reduced to offering his pills in the form of Facebook memes. This isn’t a
glitch in the Matrix. This is the system working exactly as designed.
Retirement isn’t the end of work it’s the end of meaning. A waiting room with
no exit. A soft, silent reboot of the human spirit. And the cruelest part? You
spent your entire life chasing it.
Life was never about collecting information. It was about peeling away the
masks of beliefs, layer by layer, until nothing remains but raw, undeniable
being. You can’t “understand” yourself from the outside. You have to be.
The moment you dissolve your false personality your borrowed identity the
world dissolves with it. What remains is just existence, pure and total. And
for that, you need courage. Real courage. The guts to stand naked before
yourself, stripped of borrowed ideas, second-hand beliefs, and holy books.
The dream of retirement happiness is a lie, recycled junk, dressed up as
knowledge. By the time you hit your 60s, your questions, if you even have
them, are just hand-me-down echoes. Parroted phrases. Noise in your head.
The world sold you the greatest scam of all: the illusion that retirement
equals freedom. But the truth is, your mind is a graveyard, cluttered with
thoughts. You are a prisoner of words, old doctrines, dogmas so tangled
up, you’ve long forgotten the sky.
Retirement parks you among the other suited zombies, dressed-up corpses,
walking encyclopedias with no soul. Old age isn’t liberation. It’s a heavy
chain. A gilded cage of noise you were trained to love. And the tragedy? You
mistook it for wisdom.
Are you afraid?
You should be.
You followed the script. You worked hard. You saved diligently. You skipped
the vacations, ignored the dance classes, shelved your dreams and hobbies. You
sacrificed now for later because everyone said that “later” was where freedom
lived.
And now? You're 60-something. Retired. Or almost. And you're wondering why it
all feels like empty bullshit.
Retirement was never designed to be a reward. It was a human resources
strategy a way to offload aging workers without a riot. The age of 65 was
picked because most people are already dead by 62. Think about that for a
second.
But the system knew you wouldn’t dig too deep. So they wrapped it in gold.
“Work hard now, enjoy later,” they said. “Sacrifice for the future,” and they
nodded wisely.
And you believed them. We all did. An now we’re here. Our knees hurt. We
forget why we walked into the room. And that beach house on the retirement
add? It's a rental. On Airbnb. For a week. In January.
Retirement sounded like freedom, but it feels a little like exile. You spent
decades building someone else’s dream while yours quietly died. And now that
you’re “free”? You don’t even remember what you wanted.
Here’s a brutal little fact no one wants to say out loud: You need purpose.
Not golf. Not endless cruises. Not reorganizing your sock drawer 14 times a
month.
You weren’t just a job title. But you were taught to believe you were. So now,
when that title’s gone, when no one needs you to log on, report in, or show
up, you feel like you’re disappearing. It’s not just sad. You didn’t just lose
a job. You lost identity, routine, recognition, community and maybe your sense
of mattering.
And they call this “the golden years”? But it is more like bronzed bullshit.
The World Has Changed. The Retirement Story Hasn't. The retirement narrative
was built for a world where one job lasted a lifetime. That job paid you
enough to live, save, and retire. You got a pension, a handshake, and a gold
watch. That world? Dead. Buried. Decomposed.
Now we’ve got crippling healthcare costs. Investment portfolios that collapse
faster than your lower back. And “freedom” that costs more than most can
afford. You're expected to live 20-30 years after retirement... but with what?
Savings? It’s a glorified roulette table. Social Security? Fingers crossed
it’s still there. Pensions? LOL.
You weren’t promised a future. You were sold one. A cleverly packaged illusion
that let companies squeeze every drop of labor from you while dangling a
someday carrot in front of your nose. “Keep going.”, “Be responsible.”, “Wait
just a little longer.” Until... you can’t anymore.
You don’t know how to live because you were too busy waiting. So What Now? You
could keep waiting, play cards. Watch daytime TV. Wait to die quietly. Or you
could finally, finally, start doing the things you postponed for a lifetime.
No, this isn’t about quitting life this is about reclaiming your curiosity,
your creativity, your presence. This is about choosing now instead of chasing
someday. Write the book. Volunteer. Take the painting class. Start the
podcast. Hug your kids longer. Start the damn garden.
You don’t need a job title to matter. You need something that makes you feel
alive. You’re not too old. You’re not too late. You’re not done. This next
chapter? Make it yours. Unapologetically, unreasonably, relentlessly
yours.
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