A few months ago in my Career Design Lab at Dartmouth, I posed a simple question to my students: "When do you want to retire?"

The response was surprisingly uniform. Not the "retire by 40" dream I'd heard so often before, but something more measured: 60. Almost every hand in the room went up at 60.

"Interesting," I said. "And what will you do with the rest of your life after that?"

The answers came quickly: "Travel." "Spend time with family." "Maybe some gardening." "Golf." A few mentioned volunteering, but most painted a picture of leisure—decades of it.

I found myself asking a follow-up question that seemed to catch them off guard: "Do you know how tiring gardening and golf can actually be?"

The room went quiet. Not because I was being dismissive—I wasn't. I was genuinely curious. Because here's what I've learned from my own experience: I worked 100-hour weeks as an architect in New York City for years without vacations, working for a celebrity client. I've lived in a retirement village with my house literally on a golf course. I've traveled nonstop around the world.

And what I discovered surprised me:

"The dopamine doesn't last long. You start looking for something else that motivates you."

I'm not saying I'm correct and they're wrong—everyone seems to have different perceptions and values and ideas about work. But it made me wonder: where do these different ideas come from?

The Hidden Story Behind the Numbers

That conversation has stayed with me for months now, so I decided to dig into the research. What I found was both validating and troubling—a body of evidence that explains exactly why my students are planning their escape, and why that escape might not deliver what they're hoping for.

Here's the first surprise: At least 26% of retirees eventually "unretire," and among the youngest retirees, that figure jumps to 35%. Even more revealing? 82% of those who unretired had actually planned to work again during retirement.

Think about what this means. We have generations of people planning to escape work... only to plan their return before they've even left.

The deeper I dug, the more troubling the picture became. 41% of retirees experience moderate to severe identity disruption within their first year of retirement. Researchers have documented what they call the "disenchantment phase"—a period characterized by boredom, loss of purpose, and what's been termed "empty calendar syndrome."

When I shared these statistics with my students in a follow-up session a few weeks later, one of them said something that stopped me cold: "So you're telling us that even retirement doesn't work?"

The Architecture of Escape

That's when I realized we needed to go deeper. Because what the research reveals is this:

"The desire to retire isn't really about wanting to stop working. It's about wanting to stop working badly."

My students weren't dreaming of decades on the golf course because they loved golf. They were planning their escape from something that looked fundamentally unsustainable to them.

And they're not wrong.

Studies on "hustle culture" show that managers literally cannot distinguish between consultants who genuinely work 80-hour weeks and those who just pretend to. The research demonstrates that excessive hours often lead to "diminishing returns" where people "progressively work more stupidly on tasks that are increasingly meaningless."

The science is unambiguous: overwork leads to depression, impaired sleep and memory, heart disease, and increased stroke risk. When students observe this and conclude they want out by 60, they're not being lazy—they're being rational.

But here's what caught my attention: if the problem is how we're working, why are we only talking about when to stop?

What Humans Actually Need

Self-Determination Theory reveals something profound about human motivation. We have three fundamental psychological needs that, when met, create genuine engagement rather than burnout:

Autonomy: the ability to make choices, express values, and have input into how work gets done Competence: opportunities to grow, master skills, and feel effective Relatedness: meaningful connections and a sense of belonging

When I presented this framework to my students, something shifted in the room. One student said, "Wait—so the problem isn't work itself. It's that most work doesn't actually meet these needs?"

Exactly.

Flow Theory adds another crucial piece. Peak engagement happens when we have clear goals, immediate feedback, and the right balance of challenge and skill. This is what I mean when I talk about work that makes you feel most alive rather than drained.

But here's the kicker:

"Rest isn't the opposite of this kind of work—it's what makes it possible."

The Rest Revolution

Perhaps the most eye-opening research centers on something that completely reframes the conversation:

"Rest isn't a reward for work—it's what makes good work possible."

The science is remarkable:

• Micro-breaks of just 2-3 minutes every 30 minutes significantly reduce stress and fatigue
• Quality sleep enhances memory consolidation, creativity, and emotional regulation—all the cognitive functions that define knowledge work
• Even breaks of 10 minutes or less dramatically improve focus and well-being

As researcher Alex Soojung-Kim Pang puts it: "Work and rest are actually partners... The better you are at resting, the better you will be at working."

When I shared this with my students, one of them laughed and said, "So we're not actually tired of working. We're tired of working without rest."

Beyond the Binary

This is where our conversation started to get really interesting. Because what emerged wasn't a debate about whether retirement at 60 is right or wrong—it was a recognition that we've been trapped in a false choice.

The research on "encore careers" and "unretirement" suggests that many people aren't seeking complete withdrawal from contribution and engagement. They're seeking different rhythms, different structures, different relationships with work.

Erik Erikson's research on generativity provides crucial insight here. Generativity—the concern for establishing and guiding the next generation—is a fundamental human need in adulthood. When we fail to find avenues for contribution and impact, we risk what he called stagnation: feeling stuck, unproductive, and disconnected.

This helps explain why pure leisure, even the appealing kind my students imagined, often fails to satisfy in the long term. It's not that gardening and golf are bad—it's that they may not provide the sense of generative contribution that human psychology requires for deep fulfillment.

The Question That Changed Everything

One student asked the question that shifted our entire conversation: "So what would work look like if it actually met these needs?"

The research points toward what's being called "portfolio careers"—diverse, flexible approaches to work that allow for variety, autonomy, and continuous learning. But this isn't just about having multiple income streams. It's about creating multiple avenues for meaning and contribution that can evolve over time.

The "Designing Your Life" framework shows that well-designed lives are "constantly creative, productive, changing, evolving, and there is always the possibility of surprise."

This isn't about working until you drop. It's about creating work that evolves with you—work that might shift from full-time intensity in your 30s to mentoring and consulting in your 60s to community contribution in your 70s.

Different Stories, Different Designs

But here's what I want to be crystal clear about: I'm not saying my students are wrong to want retirement at 60, and I'm not saying my desire to keep working is right.

What I am saying is that both perspectives deserve to be informed by a deeper understanding of what actually creates human flourishing.

Some people genuinely thrive on the rhythm of intense career engagement followed by complete withdrawal. Others find meaning in gradual transitions and lifelong contribution. Still others want something entirely different—seasonal work, creative pursuits, or forms of service that don't look like traditional careers at all.

The research suggests that the key isn't the specific choice but the intentionality behind it. Are we choosing retirement at 60 because we've designed a life that includes meaningful post-career engagement? Or are we choosing it as an escape from work that fails to meet our basic human needs?

"The question isn't when to retire. It's whether we're designing work worth staying engaged with."

The Real Questions

As our conversations continued over the following weeks, my students began asking different questions:

Instead of "When can I stop working?" they started asking "How can I create work that I don't need to escape from?"

Instead of "How much do I need to retire?" they explored "What would make work feel generative rather than depleting?"

Instead of "What will I do with my freedom?" they wondered "How can I contribute in ways that energize rather than exhaust me?"

These aren't necessarily better questions—they're just different ones. And they open up possibilities that the original retirement timeline didn't allow for.

The Trust Factor

The most profound moment in our ongoing conversation came when one student said: "I think what I really want isn't retirement at 60. What I want is the confidence that work won't destroy me before I get there."

That's when I realized what we're really talking about isn't retirement planning—it's trust in the possibility of sustainable, meaningful work.

My students weren't necessarily dreaming of decades of golf. They were protecting themselves against decades of depletion. They were looking at a work landscape that often seems designed to extract rather than energize, and they were making the rational calculation that they needed an exit strategy.

"What if we could design something different?"

The Lines We're Drawing

The research provides not just validation for different approaches to work and life—it makes them imperative. We now have scientific backing for what many of us intuited: that sustainable, fulfilling work requires intentional design, integrated rest, continuous growth, and opportunities for meaningful contribution.

When we create conditions where people can thrive rather than merely survive, everyone wins. Organizations get more engaged, creative, and productive workers. Individuals get more meaning, autonomy, and sustainable energy. Society gets more contribution, innovation, and human flourishing.

Every choice we make about how to work, rest, and contribute draws lines for those who come after us. When my students tell me they want to retire at 60, they're not just making personal decisions—they're responding to the blueprint they've inherited.

Our job—as educators, leaders, and system designers—is to create pathways where human needs can be met within work, not despite it.

What We're Really Designing

My students taught me that the conversation isn't really about when to retire. It's about what kind of future we're designing together. What kind of work culture we're creating. What kind of life becomes possible when we stop treating work and rest, contribution and recovery, engagement and freedom as opposing forces.

Whether you dream of retiring at 60 or working until 80, what you really want is the same thing:

"A life that honors your humanity while making a meaningful contribution to the world."

The research shows us it's possible. The question is: are we brave enough to build it?

Because the truth is, we don't need to escape work. We need to redesign it. And perhaps more importantly, we need to redesign it together—honoring different values, different rhythms, and different definitions of a life well-lived.

"The evidence is overwhelming. The blueprint exists. Now it's time to build something better."

Further Reading

For those interested in exploring these ideas deeper, here are some key resources that informed this reflection:

On Self-Determination Theory and Human Motivation:

• Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The "what" and "why" of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior. Psychological Inquiry, 11(4), 227-268.

On Flow and Optimal Experience:

• Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Harper & Row.

On Life Design:

• Burnett, B., & Evans, D. (2016). Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life. Knopf.

On Rest and Productivity:

• Pang, A. S. (2016). Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less. Basic Books.

On Retirement Psychology and Unretirement:

• Cahill, K. E., Giandrea, M. D., & Quinn, J. F. (2015). "Retirement patterns and the macroeconomy, 1992–2010: The prevalence and determinants of bridge jobs, phased retirement, and reentry among three recent cohorts of older Americans." The Gerontologist, 55(3), 384-403.