Reverse Retirement

Surfed last week at 2nd bowl and had a good time on some chest to head high sliders - wrapped it up on Saturday with a logging session. Sunday was stormy, but the surf was macking on Monday; a little sloppy, but I heard it was good - unfortunately, I had to engage in that heinous act of making money by going to work. Today, the ocean was cleaner than the last few days, but the swell dropped - again, I was caught working. Lately, I've tried to make a habit of working less; nevertheless, I have failed. The whole thing was put in perspective by a friend. He reminded me of reverse retirement - a concept we discussed frequently, but never fully implemented. It's like playing when the weather's good and working when it's stormy - or putting off work until the evening so that a beautiful day can be dutifully utilized to its' fullest extent. Reverse retirement is the concept of beginning the first half of your working life in retirement and then coming out of retirement to work the latter part of your life. Just like you don't want to waste that sunny day, why use the best years in toil only to retire when you can do the least amount of damage. It just doesn't make sense. Just think about how reverse retirement would effect social security. Those 50 years and older would be working and paying taxes to support those between 18 and 50. Since the population of those 50 and over is growing faster than the younger crew, there would be more than enough tax revenue to support retirement for the 18 to 50 crowd. The work force would be more mature and less likely to ditch work to surf. Putting the 50 and older crew to work would keep them out of the doctors office and off prescription drugs - they wouldn't have the time. The benefits to medicare are apparent. Of course, it would be difficult to come out of retirement at age 50. However, I only feel this way because I've been working the 18 to 50 shift. I'm not sure I would feel the same way if I was just coming out of retirement at 50. Just a thought. This guy's doing the 50 and over shift, he's not retired, and he's still ripping.

  ¶ 8:25 PM