Why is retirement is a spiritual virus?

I have dreamed many years of a day when I would retire or be financially independent. After that day, I would have enough resources to live without working in a job that I did not like. I equated this retirement or independence goal with a utopia of freedom. Freedom to work, or not work and the freedom to choose what to do with my time. People of all ages have this dream. From the twenty-somethings in the movie, "Office Space", to my college-age friend, who was already planning his exodus from work, before really beginning the journey, young and old dream of this same utopia.

Rabbi Daniel Lapin has said that "belief in retirement as a life goal is so destructive that it seems to form a kind of spiritual virus that infects all of your thinking. The thought of retiring becomes a distorting lens that corrupts your view of the world around you and misleads you into missteps." Rabbi Lapin explains in his book, "Thou Shall Prosper", that retirement as a concept was not around until the 1950s. He says that people are productive until they die and that the ideals of retirement give us subtle and damaging messages that work is not valuable in itself and that our productivity should slow as we age. There are many cases of people who continue to work and reach their highest level of success in their 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s.



Truly, I hope to continue to find work that helps others reach their potential and enrichs my life and those around me. If one can achieve that, then retiring is the silliest notion of all. Walk away from what?