People often announce, with pride, that they have retired at 60 or earlier. Sometimes it reflects financial independence, sometimes status, sometimes an escape from a profession they no longer enjoy. There is nothing wrong with any of these. But we may have misunderstood the idea of retirement itself.

Retirement emerged when work was physically demanding and fewer people remained healthy into old age. Today many people will live well into their eighties. A person who retires at 60 may have twenty to thirty years ahead. So perhaps the more important question is not what we are retiring from, but what we are retiring to.

What work gives us

The routine of work does more than generate income. It demands discipline, requires learning, creates social engagement, exercises judgement and gives structure to days, weeks and years. Many people spend decades building habits that keep the mind active and the body moving, only to set them aside at the very stage of life when they may be needed most.

Three questions worth asking

  1. When your professional career ends, what becomes of your accumulated experience? Does it retire with you, or become a gift to others?
  2. Which is the greater achievement: enough wealth that nobody can tell you what to do, or enough wisdom that people still seek your counsel?
  3. When your grandchildren ask who you were, would you prefer to say "I used to be", or "I was still building, teaching and contributing"?
A person may retire from employment, but never from responsibility.

The third commission

The obligation to mentor, guide, teach, support family, strengthen institutions and leave the next generation better placed remains until our last day. Financial freedom is a worthy goal, and purpose is a greater one. Perhaps retirement needs a new name. I call it the third commission. The first commission is to learn. The second is to build. The third is to guide.

Indian philosophy described this stage thousands of years ago as vanaprastha: the transition from achievement to stewardship, from accumulation to contribution, and from success to significance. The objective is not to stop working. It is to remain healthy, useful and purposeful enough to serve that third commission to the end. The question is not whether we stop working. It is whether we continue to matter.

First published on LinkedIn on 13 June 2026. Read the original