"I can't wait to retire someday."
That phrase has never sat well with me.
Now, I'm not a numbers guy, but I think in this case, numbers make a big impact. The life expectancy of the average person is 80 years old. If we assume that the average person enters the full time workforce at age 22 (when people typically exit undergrad) and retires at age 62 (according to an online source), then that's precisely 40 years of full time work. Roughly half a person's life.
Let's extrapolate this further to get a more accurate reading. The average number of business days in a single year is 260 days, and the average employee spends 8 hours a day at work. That works out to 2,080 hours out of a total 8,760 hours in a year or, in other words, 23.7% of the year. Of course, we should probably only account for waking hours since the average person sleeps 8 hours a night. That leaves us with a total of 5,840 waking hours, at which point the percentage of hours worked in a year climbs to 35.6%.
Okay, we're getting close to the end of these numbers! If we continue with the assumption that the average person works 40 years, only account for waking hours, and roll with that 35.6% number of hours worked per year, that means that... drumroll please...
The average person spends 17.8% of his or her life working. That's pretty darned close to one fifth of their life.
When I hear a person say they can't wait for retirement, all I hear is that they can't wait to throw away one fifth of their life to get to... what? Playing golf? Spending time with family? Those aren't bad things, but I wouldn't want to throw a fifth of my life in the trash to get there. Moreover, one fifth only accounts for actual time spent working. We already determined that the average person spends half their life in the workforce, so really, those people who can't wait to get to retirement are really saying they're okay with having wasted half their life.
Now you see why this doesn't sit well with me?
Life isn't a contest. You don't work in hopes of getting toward the end. The morbid reality is that the end of life is death, which I don't think anybody aspires to. Even for folks like myself who have faith in life after death, we don't treat life as if it's this bus we're just riding until it finally reaches its destination.
Instead, life is all about the journey. We do this or that because we attempt to draw meaning out of this life. And because we accept the inevitability that work is one part of this life, then why wouldn't we want to draw the most out of it? After all, we put our time and energy into things we love like our family and hobbies. Why not make the most of the one fifth of our life we spend at work?
Most people will read this and think that getting the most out of work means landing a "dream job", and because that seems impossible, most people will stop there and "settle" for the job they're in now.
Let's put that fallacy to bed now.
I work in an industry that is not the most sought after. No little boy or girl grows up thinking "I want to work in insurance!" But that doesn't stop me from loving my job. Why? Because while I do sometimes genuinely enjoy the nature of my work, what I am satisfied most with is making people happy. That doesn't even have to mean the end user. If I can make my coworkers happy by making a cool PowerPoint presentation, I do get a thrill out of that.
This principle transcends all industries. There isn't a single industry that doesn't ultimately have the goal of helping a person out in some form or fashion. So what that means is that you don't have to work in a "dream job" to be happy with work. You can make your current job a dream job by making a purposeful effort to be the best that you can be. And while your company certainly benefits from this, I'm talking more about working hard for your own sake. Basking in the satisfaction of your own hard work provides a level of gratification experienced best by you and you alone.
I hope this provides you a fresh perspective on life and work. It's never too late to choose to own your work and live it out to the fullest. The present is your opportunity to seize the day for your own satisfaction. Don't throw away that 17.8% of your life. Make it count for something that leaves a lasting legacy.
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