Money Gets Treated Better Than People

Money often gets treated better than people. A company can rebrand, pivot, acquire, or spin off new divisions. Its capital is fluid. We, by contrast, are much more constrained. To earn, we must pass narrow filters: someone must demand what we do, be willing to pay for it, and others must not be able to do it better or more cheaply.

And one day, our salary will stop. Whether through retirement, illness, job loss, or age, we can no longer rely on being the “active” earner indefinitely. Most of us build our lives around that expectation. Yet the more interesting question is whether we can build capital instead. Capital that pays us rather than the other way around.

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The Dividend Analogy

This is where the salary and dividend comparison becomes powerful. A company's dividend is a flow of cash, intended to be smooth, predictable, and ideally growing. It is a commitment management makes to shareholders. Share prices themselves are volatile, but dividends tend to be steadier.

Warren Buffett once noted that, on average, a stock’s 52-week high and low differ by around 80 percent. He referenced historical data from Value Line, which tracked about 1,700 companies, to illustrate how wildly prices can swing. These swings often happen without much connection to the underlying cash flows. He intentionally frames volatility as opportunity rather than fear.

Robert Shiller’s work reinforces this point with rigor. He showed that stock prices move far more than the discounted value of their underlying dividends would warrant. In other words, market noise, sentiment, and narrative drive swings beyond fundamentals. This is called the excess volatility puzzle. Shiller’s CAPE ratio, which averages inflation-adjusted earnings over 10 years, helps smooth out that noise and show a more grounded valuation metric.

The lesson for individuals is similar. Smoothing matters. Dividends are smoother, salaries (until they stop) are steady, and capital that pays dividends can bridge from one to the other.

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Retirement as a Dividend Machine

Once you stop earning, your capital must transform into your income. In South Africa, many retirees use living annuities, which legally allow you to draw between 2.5 percent and 17.5 percent of your capital each year.

• At 2.5 percent you may preserve or even grow the capital over time.
• At 17.5 percent you run a high risk of depletion unless your life is short or returns are stellar.
• The risk of outliving your money, called longevity risk, becomes very real.

In the United States, the often-cited 4 percent rule suggests that a 4 percent initial withdrawal, adjusted for inflation, gives you a better than even chance of lasting 30 years. That implies having around 25 times your intended annual withdrawal as capital. But many retirees, constrained by their actual savings, end up needing to draw more.

So a practical sustainable drawdown zone for many is roughly 2.5 to 4 percent. Above that line, you begin entering the decumulation phase and accepting trade-offs. Below it, you might preserve capital, but balancing lifestyle and security becomes a delicate art.

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First, Second, Third Generation Wealth

There are three stages of wealth. Capital can transition from active earning to quiet income.

1. First generation: building from scratch, working for every rand.
2. Second generation: capital begins to earn alongside you, and you balance salary and capital income.
3. Third generation: money earns enough that you may draw without exhausting principal, while still allowing growth.

In that third stage, drawing capital feels more like a dividend, a small fraction of a large, compounding base. You can live, grow the base, and detach more fully from the necessity of employment.

That is the destiny many financial plans aim toward: your capital supporting your life, not the other way around.

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Compulsory and Discretionary Savings

Another piece of this puzzle is how you save.

• Compulsory money, for example retirement funds and pension contributions, is often pre-tax, sheltered growth, and restricted access. It is the “forced engine” the system incentivises you to build.
• Discretionary money is after-tax, flexible, and liquid, but taxed on growth and exposed to volatility.

Compulsory savings encourage a long-term mentality because you cannot touch it too early. They act as guardrails against short-termism. Discretionary money gives you optionality but also temptation.

Part of aligning your money to be salary-like is balancing these two. Use the system’s incentives where possible, but make sure your discretionary capital also works hard, fills gaps, and gives breathing room.

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The Emotional Landscape: Identity, Fear, and Over-Frugality

One of the trickiest parts of the decumulation phase is the emotional shift. Most of our identity is tied to doing, producing, being paid. When salary stops, that scaffolding dissolves.

Thinking of money as a dividend machine helps detach identity from income. The Norway sovereign wealth fund offers a metaphor. Originally built on oil revenue, its identity is no longer just oil. It diversified globally and broke free from its original source of wealth. People, in their financial lives, can similarly detach: from “my job is who I am” to “my capital supports my purpose.”

Another emotional risk is under-consumption. People become so scared of running out that they live too tightly. They never enjoy retirement, even though the money is there. The fear that capital will be eaten away becomes a prison.

Thus, planning is not only about avoiding ruin. It is about calibrating ambition, security, and enjoyment. It is about allowing your money to feel like salary, predictable and generative, while still giving you permission to live.

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What You Can Do (Rule of Thumb)

• Aim for 2.5 to 4 percent drawdowns in your planning horizon.
• Use capital multiplied by 25 to 40 as a working target, recognising it is not a guarantee but a frame.
• Treat every bit of cash you do not need as a worker: get your money a job.
• Balance compulsory savings, which provide guardrail capital, with discretionary investments, which provide flexibility, growth, and optionality.
• Think of your identity beyond income. Allow the possibility that your life can outgrow the filters of paid work.
• Accept noise. Let the market fluctuate. Use smoothing, through dividends and stable allocations, to moderate how much of that noise hits your daily life.

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Provocative Question

How salary-like do you need your money to be?

That question is not just for the ultra-wealthy or future retirees. It is for anyone with capital or ambition. It shapes what type of assets you lean into, how much risk you accept, and how you define purpose beyond your paycheck.

Wanting It

I didn’t plan to retire at 34. I had failed to get the job I wanted at one company, and moved to another. It again looked like I wouldn’t be able to take my fate in my own hands. I was frustrated. The South African mentality of not blaming or relying on anyone was in me. Make a plan. Do the work. Except that didn’t seem to be how the world worked in reality. There was too much noise for plans. Too much politics for agency. I did plan for the risk of getting disabled and not being able to work. By 34, I had built enough Capital to live a simple life if some bad fortune prevented my hands from feeding my mouth. Particularly frustrated by my lack of control, the realisation dawned that it was available if I wanted it. I didn’t have to be disabled to stop working for an income. If I refocused on the things that really mattered to me. That meant letting go of traditional measures of status and success. I would be time rich, but seemingly lost to many. But time, space and relationships are what I valued. So I took the step.

First Day Post Work - August 2014

Handcuffed

Hand-to-mouth living stumbles when the hands get cuffed. The mouth stays hungry. The most widely accepted form of Engine building is Pensions. We get that one day we will have reduced capacity to earn, but we will still need to live. Many Pension Funds started as Pay-As-You-Go which meant working members paid the pensions for retired members. A legitimate Ponzi Scheme. As long as new workers joined, they could support new retirees without any Capital. There has been a big shift to self-funding. Building up your own Capital over your working life. In part because we are living longer, so there aren’t enough working age people (hands) to support more and longer retirements (mouths). “Work Culture” where you spend what you earn without building a Buffer or Engine is equally precarious. I believe in a world with underlying financial security (Universal Basic Income) and individual Buffers (Emergency funds for 3-6 months) and Engines (Capital to contribute your Earnings when you can’t work). Nothing happens the way we planned. We adapt, adjust, and accommodate. That requires planning for when you can’t do that thing you do.

Beyond Survival

We should retire the idea of retirement. The two strongest points of Capitalism are the ideas of (1) reinvestment, and (2) emancipating labour. When we consume whatever we produce, and our physical and mental labour is our only source of income, then we are forced to live hand to mouth. Retirement was an industrial age concept where we needed to provide for when we couldn't work anymore. Instead, by building an engine you can find the financial security to shift your attention. You can have the freedom to direct your energy towards fulfilment rather than mere survival. Retirement is a survival concept. There is more to life than survival.

Industrial Age

Building Engines

Retire the idea of retirement. The rules of abundance are completely different from the rules of scarcity. Economics is the study of scarcity. Beyond that lies the magic. Where we can lift our eyes from the panic. Where we can breathe. First however, we need to deal with reality. Don't invest in a pension for when you are finished. Invest in an engine that can help you start. Build something that can free you, your family, and your community. Free you from the constraints of scarcity. Scarcity steals more than flesh and muscle, it steals minds. It steals hearts. Capital is not the enemy of Labour. Capital can free Labour to pursue the things that Capital is useless at. Some things can't be reduced to numbers. It is in those beautiful spaces that we are meant to labour.

Boulton and Watt Engine of 1788

Able to Walk Away

I started my (post-university) working career in Risk Product Development. The obvious risk people buy insurance for is dying. If you have dependants, the financial strain of death can send those people's lives into a spiral. The less obvious (but what I came to believe more dangerous) risk, is disability. If you are still alive, but unable to contribute in a financial way... society isn't set up to look after you. And you are still around.

I worked on Disability Products. There are products to cover you if you can't do your Daily Tasks (opening a jar, driving a car, showering, etc.). There are products to cover you if you can't do your own occupation (a lawyer who loses ability to concentrate), and products to cover you if you can't do any occupation (even if you could do your daily tasks).

This made me do the calculations for myself about how much I would need if I could never work again. I was warned of hair dressers whose hair was a mess, home builders whose homes were falling apart, and accountants who hadn't done their own taxes. I didn't want to be an actuary who couldn't work, but had not got cover.

I knew that number. It became a target. Initially I paid a premium to the insurance company I had worked for, but the goal was to have that much myself. Why should I 'wait' to get disabled to be able to focus my efforts on something else? I had accepted the way the world worked, now I wanted to make it work for me so I could do other things.

Normally that target grows. People adjust to their income, and forget how they ever got by before that. I was super keen to be financially independent, so instead, I saved and invested aggressively. 

I didn't let my target grow. Eventually the day came where I met it. I had enough to stop if I wanted to. So I did. Some people are lucky to be in jobs that they love. My guess is a lot of us put up with being treated badly, because we have no other choice. We can't just walk away. I don't think the current work place environment is a level playing field. I don't like the idea of bosses, and I don't like the idea that 'the customer is king'.

I don't see the world beyond work as one where we disengage. Quite the opposite. When what we do becomes a conscious choice, that is when work becomes the art of creating meaning.

Old Colleagues, Old Friends

Needing Problems

'The Luddites were 19th-century English textile workers (or self-employed weavers who feared the end of their trade) who protested against newly developed labour-economising technologies, primarily between 1811 and 1816. The stocking frames, spinning frames and power looms introduced during the Industrial Revolution threatened to replace them with less-skilled, low-wage labourers, leaving them without work. The Luddite movement culminated in a region-wide rebellion in Northwestern England that required a massive deployment of military force to suppress.'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite

The lesson I have learnt from some of the smartest business people I know is that ownership matters. The nature of work in a company with owners and workers is that the workers get a salary, and the owners get what is left. If you are paid a salary, you get a commitment from the owner to a degree of stability. Largely independent of the fortunes of the company, as long as it survives, you will get your salary. In new companies, the owners will be sweating over meeting the wage bill. They may not receive anything for a while in order to pay for workers.

If a company is small enough, the owners probably know the workers. The owners probably are workers. As they grow, things become more abstract. Workers become an input into the process. Salary doesn't depend on the success of the company. It depends on cog value. Your manager will be doing some figuring in their head to pay you enough that you won't leave. That figure will depend more on what alternatives you have than how much the company could afford to pay you. 

This is because there is no 'right price'. Capitalism doesn't solve the question of what the right price is. What it does is trade. If you stay in your job, you are saying that you are being remunerated enough to stay. The manager will also be comparing what they get from you to what they can get from alternative hires. These hires may be in other countries or they may be machines. If a machine can do your job for less, or someone in another country will do it for less, there is a big incentive to go in that direction. 

Capitalism is effectively a massive incentive to solve problems. I have had bosses tell me to 'make yourself redundant, so you can move onto more interesting problems'. I loved that advice. If you can take a job that used to need doing and solve the problem so that it no longer needs doing, you can really see the value you have added. The problem with that is obvious. If you are not the owner, you are really trusting that there will be another job for you.

The Luddites spotted the Industrial Revolution and the coming of the machines as destroying their jobs. They were right. Their jobs were being made redundant. The big bet was that there would be other jobs to replace those jobs. The problem there, again, lies in trust.

You can turn your labour into food, housing, clothing and security. You can also turn your labour into capital. In both cases you can be solving problems. The advantage of slowly turning your labour into capital is that once that problem is solved, you aren't left with the problem of survival. Your capital still has a job. You aren't left with a situation where you actually needed the problem.

Living hand to mouth and not saving puts you at incredible risk in an economy that is evolving at pace. Retirement used to be about saving for the day when you couldn't work. When things change at the pace they do now, saving and more importantly investing becomes a case of ensuring you aren't left in the lurch when work changes. You can't assume your job will still be a job that needs doing.

I believe in a Universal Basic Income. Effectively, this is a dividend on the conversion of the labour of our shared ancestors into capital. We have two parents, four grand-parents, eight great grand-parents, and so on. You don't have to go to far back before you realise we are all family. 30 generations back, we had a billion ancestors in the same generation. There weren't a billion people on the planet at that time.

I don't think most people are going to save. The figures I used to know in South Africa were that around 1% of people could afford to retire at their same standard of living. About 6% of people could afford to retire at all. A UBI allows a buffer for change. It allows people to retrain, to study, or to spend their time on pursuits which don't generate money. 

Change is scary if change means you are stuffed. A little breathing space benefits everyone and stops us needing problems.

The Outs

One of the first financial advisers I worked with told me a story about a very rich man coming to him for retirement advice. He was getting into his late 60s and was looking to stop working. He spent around R20 Million a year which was covered by his salary. He wanted to know what he needed to do to put enough away to stop working and carry on with his lifestyle. Ideally in about five years. He hadn't started saving.

The financial adviser told him, 'The only thing I can do to help you with that is buy you a beer.' The truth is, this man was only rich by the measure of his lifestyle. He lived hand to mouth, even if the hand had always been big and the mouth always hungry. 

Enough for a Beer

If someone is spending more than what they earn, they are arguably further from financial freedom than when they started work. The biggest obstacle becomes 'the lifestyle to which you are accustomed'. There are Yogis living simple lives with financial freedom. There are Chief Executive Officers earning multiple millions of dollars who can't afford to retire. The amount you have saved is only one side of the equation. Most people tend to adjust their lifestyles up towards extravagance as their salaries increase. It is worth trying to decouple those two things. Figure out what you need, then let any increases you get nibble away at the chains on your financial freedom rather than reinforcing them.

Managers of businesses know this in terms of running a good operation. There are fixed expenses and variable expenses. The variable ones can be cut down, but the fixed ones can bleed you dry. If you start a business that requires you to pay rent on the property each month, you have to make enough for that rent. If you have employees, you have to make enough to meet payroll.

One of the first steps to financial freedom is getting a grip on what the outs are. How much is enough depends mostly on you.

Post Work World

I regularly write about my excitement about a 'Post Work' world. I am not against the idea of work in the sense of engagement. I consider myself far more engaged since I stopped 'working'. What I am excited about is moving to a world without the Monetising Filter. Not all ideas make good business ideas. There are quite specific criteria about what makes a good business. The best books I know of on the subject are Michael Porter's 'Competitive Advantage' and Benjamin Graham's 'The Intelligent Investor'.

I have been writing daily for a year and a half, and have yet to earn £10 from that endeavour. That doesn't make writing a bad idea. Having studied businesses for several years, I have a good idea of what I would need to do to monetise my writing. Frankly that is a bad idea. If I want to make money there are better ways for me to go about it. For me, it was a case of sitting back and deciding what was important to me. A lot of the things I enjoy doing are really cheap. Wikipedia is awesome. I can get lost in it for hours for free. I have amazing friends and spending time with them is my idea of the good life.

I actually enjoyed my job. I loved studying businesses. I loved understanding how they worked. A lot of investment is very philosophical. No one really knows exactly how things work. There is a lot of trial and error, and huge scope for learning. What I found frustrating was the constraint on my time. I felt time impoverished. I felt that I was prioritising work over other things that were important. In my view more important. I am now in a position to make time for people who make time for me. That is the most important thing for me.

I know this puts me in an incredibly privileged position. Most people can not simply decide to cut back drastically on their expenses and live a simpler life. They don't have the finances to sustain that. I think more people could do this than realise it, but I also know that is not the choice many would make. Cutting back expenses is emotionally difficult. We are used to trying to steadily improve our lives through a capacity to slowly increase how much we spend. Either because of savings or career progression. The idea of stopping that progression is not attractive to a lot of people. A lot of people love their work. Awesome.

So a 'Post Work' world doesn't mean people would need to stop doing things they find fulfilling because a machine can do it better. It just means that in deciding how to spend our time, we will be able to expand our options beyond things that can be monetised in some way. 

In my Utopia, there would be a Sovereign Wealth Fund for Global Citizens. It would pay a Universal Income sufficient to cover the first few rungs of Maslow's Hierarchy. Everyone would be able to afford food, water, warmth, rest, safety and security. This doesn't mean we would need to stop working, and people who like fancy stuff can still work for it. It just means that we would be free to work on things that provide other incentives like relationships, mastery, and actualisation.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Work and Wires

When I visualise the future, I don't see a world where Technology has taken over and there are devices and gizmos everywhere. I see wires and chunky invasive things slowly being replaced with nature and space. I see small becoming possible again. AirBnB CEO Brian Chesky mentions tasks being divided into the hand, the head, and the heart. Industrialisation replaces the hand as machines scale up to do unskilled tasks far more efficiently than our multipurpose biology could ever dream of. Blue collars get replaced by steel. Next will come the head tasks. We are not far away from White collars being replaced. What proportion of the jobs of Lawyers, Actuaries, Doctors, Engineers, Architects are algorithms. Strings of instructions. If it is something you can be told how to do, a computer can do it.

Bye Bye White Collar

Bluetooth removes wires. What happens when Artificial Intelligence removes work? We are already used to being able to work remotely and farm out tasks. If you can send instructions, a computer can do it. Unless you are part of a very small set of people who are asking for unusual/creative things to be done, a computer can likely learn from all the other times it has been done. All driverless cars can automatically know about a pothole once one has gone through it. What happens when work and wires disappear?

The future I see is where obstacles have been removed. The technology acts as a platform. AirBnB is a great example. Why didn't people invite people into their homes before? Because it was hard. They aren't building anything, they are removing obstacles, making things easier and opening up connections. The stuff that can't be replaced is more than an instruction. It is the interaction of people, places, objects, time and space.

Google turns the idea of having a product you have to sell on its head. Most people think they never click on adverts. They don't even know the search results are the advert. They don't know how Google makes money. Amazon turns the idea of making a profit on its head. Over an incredibly long period they build a bigger and bigger business through reinvestment. What if an Artificial Intelligence business able to do all sorts of remote jobs better than people reinvested its profits by Giving Directly. What if that extended to the point where every human on the planet suddenly started receiving a universal income of around $75,000? This would seem odd. Like Google 'giving away' free search. But what if the AI realised that if everyone had 'enough', they would have far more people using their services? What if more people using Goomazon meant a bigger Goomazon?

I think there is a world beyond work. A world beyond an exchange economy. It is exciting. It means we have to start thinking about time in ways beyond productivity. It means we have to think of motivation beyond building something. It means we start getting into the juicy parts of life.

We get to savour life.

What Do You Do?

One of my best buddies vetoed my answer to his girlfriend's 'What do you do?'. Another just laughed, and said 'Is that what you are going with?'. All I had said was, 'I am a writer'. The truth is more complicated than that, but it is funny how easy most people find that question to answer even though the truth is more complicated.

In 2011, I started renting an Art Studio at the Wimbledon Art Studios. If renting an art studio makes you an artist, did I stop being an artist four years later when I gave up my studio to tighten up on expenses? Do you have to have sold work? How much? So does that exclude Van Gogh? Do you have to have done formal studies? Then what about the self-taught artists? At what point are you allowed to call yourself something? Another way I have cut back is that I have resigned as an Actuary. No membership fees in exchange for no FIA after my name. Just call me Trev.

Last day in my Art Studio a year ago

In India, most Gurus are self proclaimed. If one person follows you, you are a Guru. In truth, you don't need one person to follow you. If you are the only one who realises you are a Guru, you are. Some like the idea of more formal certification, titles, professional bodies and various other signals. I like the 'Stephen Hawking' idea. I have heard he uses no titles or letters after his name. Admittedly, the guy is so famous his name is a title. Labels give short cuts in an anonymous world.

'What do I do?'. Each day I wake up, preferably without an alarm, and do some reading before I write my blog post for the day. The rest of the day is free. I try to be 'micro-ambitious'. I like the framework I have learnt through Yoga. The five points focus on proper exercise, breathing, relaxation, diet and thinking. Progress is tiny and incremental. Each day, I try work another ache out of my body and learn something new. I try create space to read and think about the things that matter to people that matter to me. I try make myself available to spend time with people.

I stopped working for a salary about a year and a half ago. I am attempting to let my savings be my breadwinner while I focus on life building. If I spend less than my money makes, then I can keep that up. That is a general rule. If you use less than you put in, what you are doing is sustainable. If you use more, you are a consumer. 'How much is enough' depends on you. It is embarrassing to see how little material stuff the majority of the world's population get by on. The median household income of the rich OECD countries in 2011 was $19,000. Roughly 1.2 Billion people 'live' on less than $1.25/day. That is not enough, but enough is less than you think.

OECD Household Income

We mostly define ourselves by our work. Answering the question with 'I am retired' got awkward. I don't believe in retirement. I say writer because it is something I do every day. Perhaps I could answer the question, 'I make time'. The friend who laughed at my answer also hasn't figured out his answer. John's project is Unogwaja. He is trying to figure out how to be a partner to people who are trying to do good work. Trying to inspire fun and togetherness as we figure out what it is we need to do. And get on with it.

Transitioning Potential (with Malcolm)

Trev:

We should retire the idea of retirement. A better concept would be managing how we spend our time. Segmenting our lives into school, university, work and retirement forces us to define a path. It feels a little like a trap. I prefer the idea of life long learning, and building buffers that allow you to explore. If we overdefine ourselves by work, there can be incredible trauma when that rug is pulled from beneath us. Even if we know the date that rug pulling is coming. Even if you are lucky enough to have prepared financially, preparing emotionally is perhaps more important.

Malcolm:

Yes, we should retire the idea of retirement. It was a concept that had a usefulness at a time when innovative ideas were required to solve some economic challenges. It has served its purposes and many innovative and progressive organisations have seen the light and started phasing it out of their operations. However, many others have not, and for those people who have been in jobs they may have hated all their lives, the prospect of retirement is a freeing notion. Many organisations around the world still have retirement ages in place, and the trauma that the transition causes needs to be addressed so as to enable people to have meaningful retirement lifestyles.

Trev:

As successful businesses scale, by necessity they put processes in place where employees become 'standardised'. They are thought of in terms of years of experience, qualifications, feedback ratings and various other ways of quantifying them. When an organisation is small, it is easier to think of a person as an individual. As things get bigger, each action sets a precedent. The very same progress you speak of has meant that as retirement reaches its retirement, the bigger organisations are relatively dehumanised compared to their founders. These transitions are difficult, emotional exercises that value a person beyond their value to the company. Addressing the trauma requires reconnecting to the community beyond the company.

Malcolm:
Reconnecting to the community beyond the company is not as easy as it often appears and many people go into retirement believing that a "permanent vacation" is just what they need. After a period of enjoyable relaxation there is often an awareness that the workplace provided for a lot of things other than just a paycheck. Status, social interaction and mental stimulation are just a few, and these need to be replaced as the retiree reconnects with the community outside the workplace. When they don't replace these or find a place in the community where significant and meaning can be found, there is often trauma and disappointment.

Trev:
I have heard of a few useful techniques and ideas. In Denmark, they have 'Communal Homes' with a variety of families sharing facilities while maintaining sufficient private space. Older generations can help with homework or provide sage advice. In the Netherlands, there are students being offered cheap accommodation in retirement homes. A quiet, clean, affordable place to live and study. They play chess with, read to, and generally become friends of those living there. Social Media can also help! If youngsters can be patient enough to help. As you say, it is important to find ways that all people's 'status, social interaction and mental stimulation' doesn't come solely from work, or the rug can be pulled.

Malcolm:
We could say that it is not so much the idea of retirement that should be retired, but rather the idea that the idea that retirement means "doing nothing after a lifetime of being busy". It is the prospect of doing nothing and therefore being nothing, not of any use to society, that creates the psychological trauma. If the concept of retirement is seen as a transition from doing a job, or having a career, that you perhaps did not choose in the first place (because of life circumstances), then retirement becomes the time to get in touch with what motivates you. To make some new choices that are meaningful and significant. Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot makes this very clear in her book "The Third Chapter", and highlights the possibilities for learning, involvement and growth. As humans strive to raise their level of consciousness and contribute to the well-being of the world, the contribution of the "retirees" could be of great value.

Trev:

Vedantic Philosophy talks about life stages in quite a dramatic way. Brahmacharya (Student), Grihastha (Householder), Vanaprastha (Retired) and Sannyassa (Renunciation). Vanaprastha is supposed to be a gradual handing over of responsibilities for doing 'the stuff you have to do' while acting in an increasingly advisory role. This allows a greater focus on 'Moksha' which if you are religious may mean spiritual issues, but I take to just mean the stuff of life. Really thinking about and doing more of the 'meaningful and significant'. The final stage of Sannyassa is where the Swamis or Teachers come from. This seems very analogous to shifting a focus from 'now you are working'/'now you are not' to lifelong learning and a gradual transition from the stuff of need to the stuff of meaning.

Malcolm:

It was inevitable that this discussion about retirement should take a philosophical direction as the issues involved are concerned with the meaning of life, and how to live the best life possible at all times.  If we are growing in awareness and consciousness as we advance through the years, then what we do each day take on significant and enhances our sense of having a meaningful and happy journey on this earthly plane. And as we become more aware of what motivates and drives us, we can discover what brings us joy, and what makes other people happy, and the world a better place. A change can be made with awareness, whatever it is. Perhaps an extended contract with the company you always worked for because it was a job you loved, or a change to making and selling furniture because this is your passion, or taking care of the grandchildren every other day for a few hours. All that matters is that it is significant, meaningful and fills you with joy.

Trev:

I also like the idea of porous or interchangeable life stages. Whether it is taking mini-retirements to recharge, going back to university for a life change, moving countries to expand awareness, or simply taking on projects that push your circle of competence. I get the impression that the main reason retirement can be debilitating, or intimidating, is because of reduced engagement. As more meaningful, significant and joyful connections are created, the idea of age becomes redundant. An 80 year old can learn about iPads as a toddler learns the monkey bars. Friendships, mentorships, and other ways to keep people feeling a part of a bigger us than the one that struggles with decaying skin and bones.

Malcolm:

Many companies still have a retirement age in place. Some organisations have started increasing the age of retirement as the awareness dawns as to its obsolete nature. Others have realised the cost of getting rid of experience and the skill that goes with it. But few companies who still have a retirement age in place are caring enough to provide exit training to assist employees to deal with the trauma, and make the transition to a new, and meaningful, lifestyle. At Potential Unlimited, we provide just such a service, both on-line and in house (see www.potentialunlimited.co.za). This enables people to identify what work has meant to them, and to replace all these aspects with new, meaningful and significant activities. A gradual transition from the stuff of need to the stuff of meaning. After all is said and done, once and for all, we should retire the idea of retirement.

Three Black Boys. Different Ages. Equally Silly.

Malcolm Black, my Dad's, first guest post was  'Time to Retire'

Finding Buzz Time (with Steve)

I met Steve Iffland through John McInroy and my interest in the Unogwaja Challenge. I was thinking of applying and Steve had done the inspiring cycle from Cape Town to the start of the Comrades Marathon (followed by the run). I am no athlete, so I was trying to wrap my head around what I would be getting myself into. I didn't crack the team for next year. An awesome bunch of people applied and I have um, cough, work to do. I am going to attempt a debut Comrades and spend some time on my bike with an eye to the 2017 team. I also met Tiago when I was in Lisbon. Another red-sock wearing Unogwajan, it is clear that the thing that binds these characters together is Buzz. Steve respond to the post I wrote about finding 'Time for Buzz' with this comment. The comment became a chat...

Steve:

I constantly face this question. My answer is there is always things that can 'give' to make sure you have time for the things that make you buzz! The trick is prioritising what is important to you while not compromising work, friends and family. That may mean no lie-ins, letting go of the golf club membership, less telly, less pub, whatever... if you list what gives you the most buzz to the least buzz... culling the bottom of the list frees up plenty of time for lots of fun at the top of the list! (P.S. I always smile when a weekend golfer says that running marathons is selfish in terms of family time!)

Trev:

The challenge comes in the ranking of buzz. Some things are obviously more important when viewed with perspective. Clearly a child, a parent, a grandparent, a partner, or a friend are more important than a meeting with your boss or a scheduled catch up with a client. But we often assume family, for example, will be there. 'Reality' gets priority. I suddenly realised I was great at making sure I called clients four times a year, and saw most of them at least once. I was less great at doing the same for people that mattered to me. That seems upside down.

Steve:

Yes, ranking the buzz is hard. But when I rank things that make me buzz they are mine, and not my family's, or my works. Family and work time is non-negotiable. It's up to your relationship with both of them to make sure they are receiving enough attention. Tricky that. My buzz ranking system is for 'my time' (which we all need!) as I get busier the ranking and culling system has to get more brutal! Play hockey had to give for Unogwaja last year. Unogwaja gave the possibility for more buzz. Simple.

The Red Sock Friday, Unogwaja Peloton

Trev:

Simple. You are a luckier man than me! It always feels like I want to be doing everything. Accepting that a few things are non-negotiable does reduce the burden of choice though. Ensuring there is some 'my time' seems the trick in the tricky. Many of my buddies are slap bang in the middle of raising families. I heard one executive say once that he loved it when staff got a family and a mortgage. They got much easier to manage because life had rung the bell to indicate that 'my time' was over. Without some 'my time', the other time is lower quality. 

Steve:

Lucky... well yes, VERY! But not because I get to do everything I want too, that list is still long. Rather because I have a family (especially wife), friends and colleagues that get your point... "Without some 'my time', the other time is lower quality." The thought of ringing the bell on life between say 30 and 55 and focusing on work and family with no 'personal buzziness' in your life scares me. That approach will grind you into a depression! On the upside, managing this issue will be easier as my guess is nobody will want to spend time with you then anyway!

Trev:

'All work and not play makes Jack a dull boy'. I just get a little frustrated with how busy everyone seems. I am now in the fortunate position of having a lot of time on my hands to spend with people I care about. It means I can be flexible and fit into when people have a moment. Still, it feels a little some of the brutal time prioritising is required (This for family, this for work, this for me), means there isn't much time, if any, just available for 'what ifs'. You say work time is non-negotiable. Why? This is a societal sacred cow. We often define ourselves by our work and it is our one default habit. Are we scared of free time?

Steve:

A lot of questions there! I don't think we are scared of free time. I also don't think we all want to be particularly defined by our work. I don't. I think society defines us by our work, or degree, or education, or lack of any of the above! Like it or not. Bin man, Doctor, Teacher, Blogger or Banker. Just hearing the words makes us form a picture and probably an opinion. Work is non-negotiable in the system we live in. Unless of course you have capital, then it's negotiable and probably not called work... but we need to work to save that capital. Until we have the capital, it has to be a balancing act, and I guess the Buzz part of life often gives first. Perhaps the trick is that we don't need as much capital as what we think? Or maybe it's that the capital doesn't need to be just money?

Trev:

'Enough' is a moving target. I would like to do some work on an absolute 'enough' target. What is the minimum capital you would need per person to be safe, eat healthily, be clean, have a place to sleep and access to the shared wealth that is so plentiful (running trails, rivers, parks). Most people aren't aiming for independence. We are fighting fires. Living hand to mouth with nothing left over. I don't want to sound too negative. I am not a 'We are all corporate slaves' kind of guy. I just think breathing room and space is very powerful. The music is in the gaps. The gaps and the connections, relationships, and buzz they allow.

Steve:

Once you know the answer to how much is enough, how do you get there? Do you graft for 15 years working hours with no buzz knowing (hoping) that you'll get to 'enough' (if the goal posts don't move!) and then be able to fill your time with all the good things? Or do you accept that hopefully you'll get to enough at 65, enjoy a little buzz and balance on the way, and still have enough life left to enjoy it. A friend of mines Dad told his wife when they married in their twenties that he was retiring when he hit forty. She probably didn't see much of him between that day and forty. But he did retire, he obviously now has the capital and it all looks rosy. Having said that, I bet there were a few rocky periods in those 'working years' and this option isn't available to the majority. For most, balance must be the way. Being brutal with 'negotiables' and recognising how important they are to happiness should make the non-negotiables (which often offer a bit of buzz too!) a bit more acceptable.

Trev:

Stefan Sagmeister got me thinking a few years back, with a completely different way of thinking about how to build a career. He spreads 5 years of retirement out over 35 years by taking a year, every 7 years. Rather than saving enough for a full stop, save enough for a comma. I think the idea of building buffers is a powerful one. This does feel like a 'velvet problem', privileged conversation that only the really wealthy get to think about. But I don't think that's true. I think all of us can learn to build in gaps and spaces. The fires may then go out without us fighting them. And the buzz will follow.