Early Retirement

I loved a quote I recently read on retirement,”Retire from your job, but never retire your mind.” 

While this resonates with my beliefs, my recent observation of people around me running from accepting basic responsibilities has disappointed me. I understand that the pandemic has slowed down businesses, working from home has been a challenge for a large number of us. Relationships have suffered even more than usual and an existential crisis pandemic has hit almost everyone who lacks purpose in their daily lives. This includes me to an extent as well.

While these are all very real issues and the solution to overcome these issues aren’t simple, what’s more perplexing is that a lot of us have given up on living entirely. Now, when I say that someone has given up on living, I don’t mean to say that people have stopped breathing or just stopped existing. They are very much here in their physical form but the majority seem to have given up on expanding their minds.

When a human being is stagnant in their mind, they are willing to let go of all the learnings in this world and growth that lies in consuming that knowledge. It’s a universally accepted fact that the only constant is change but there is one more constant which a limited number of us talk about; death. Death is a state that can’t be changed. Once you are there, there is no way to breathe life into yourself and change this condition of the human body. While the death I just mentioned is life leaving the body, there are some people who have retired the potential of their minds in order to just go through the rest of their days in complete and utter waste of time and space they occupy.

Now, I don’t want to sound mean but the fact of the matter is that those who accept their fate and give up on improving their lives have literally admitted to themselves that there is nothing better on the other side of trying harder. They have made a conscious decision to live in their vacuum and call it the way this world works. Living within your capacity/limits has overtake reach for the stars and those who think of themselves as being real and experienced can’t seem to look beyond these beliefs because their crowd (also the real and experienced kind) call them wise and masters of life.

Do you accept your current miserable and uninspired state of life because that’s the wise thing to do? 

Or 

Are you willing to go beyond the realms of the easy living to realise the potential of real living through hard work and persistence?

Yes, this is the same old motivational/self – reflection kind of piece asking everyone reading this to look beyond their current lives in order to achieve more but this is moreover directed to those who think that its okay to spend a life of mediocrity because its easy. 

Everything that is easy isn’t necessarily bad or negative for you but an accepted state of easy living is a state of living that doesn’t inspire growth of the human mind and potential. Push yourself not by setting up goals that you will never come around to realise but by setting up goals that will inspire you each day of your life. Let yourself rest when it’s necessary to rest but the mind never rests and the ultimate price of this state of early retirement leads to regret, pain and suffering which just wastes time even further.

Be willing and obvious in your actions that are meant to expand your mind. When you are trying to go beyond you are letting yourself and your mind know that there is much more to live for. You are letting yourself know that while the easy life is addictive because of its sort of effortless nature, a demanding mindset is what helps your potential find its home.

Parth Rawal