Never Retire: An Important Post On The Future Of This Newsletter

And working less now so you can work less longer

To get up to speed on what we’re doing—covering the primary elements of a core Never Retire strategy—see our two most recent posts.

Never Retire: My Dad Turned 90 Last Week

Never Retire: Live More Evenly Across The Lifespan

The best way to approach the second element—work less now so you can work less longer—is to consider work ethic.

Where I come from, work ethic defines people.

You judge yourself on the basis of how hard you work. You judge others—and judge hard—on the basis of how hard they work.

In today’s installment of the Never Retire newsletter, we touch on work ethic and ambition. It’s something I plan to expand on in the newsletter once we hit the ground in Spain. Because people always talk about how Spaniards—and other Europeans—work to live, whereas Americans live to work. I want to see how it looks and feels—and how it plays out for me—on the ground.

When we move to Spain in just 38 days!

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Now on the future of the newsletter…

I have been thinking that some of my favorite newsletter posts are the ones from the trips my wife and I took to Europe over the last few years.

So, with the move just 38 days away (!!), I will use the end of November and December to repost my favorite European installments.

Then, we'll pick back up literally right after the New Year from Spain! We're leaving January 2nd.

And a big part of what I'll post as we settle there are blow-by-blows of our day-to-day. Basically, here's what we did and here's how much it cost, as if we are reporting from vacation.

Replicating the format of these popular posts is the best way I know of to capture the feel of how we're experiencing a place and to effectively tie it all back to how we're adjusting to the move. Taken together, this approach will work best to help inform your adaptation of a Never Retire lifestyle.

Today's post is free. I hope you'll upgrade to a paid subscription now to go back in time with some of the best photography, food porn, restaurant and bar recommendations and observations from Spain, Italy, France and Malta throughout the rest of this year.

Then, in 2025—finally (!)—the Never Retire newsletter emanates from our new home—Valencia, Spain with the introductory weekend coming from Barcelona!

You can’t be semi-retired and adhere to working class notions of work ethic.

I come from a place where people believe that nobody wants to work today. It’s incredibly difficult to make the choices you need to make to be truly semi-retired when there’s a stigma attached to working less. Because being semi-retired isn’t merely working part-time. It’s a lifestyle. Not where and how often your manager puts you in the schedule.

It’s not money that holds people back from doing things most other people don’t do.

It’s the decisions people make, primarily in relation to their lifestyle.

You decide to own a business you can never get away from.

You decide to have a job you can never get away from. One that “gives you” two weeks of vacation — or whatever — each year.

You decide to have the rent, mortgage, or car payment that requires that business or job.

You decide to save for traditional retirement, rather than embrace an alternative that’ll free you from the work-a-day grind.

If I said these things to people, I wouldn’t feel embarrassed. I’d feel like a dickhead.

I’d feel like a dickhead, in part, because our parents, other family and friends instill the notion of work ethic—of letting work overtake our lives and shape our identities—in us from an early age.

I’m a freelance writer. I currently have three sources of income. I have a good sense of the minimum each of these jobs will pay most months and how much time I need to spend working to meet that minimum. Generally, I work no more than 25 hours a week (often less) to hit that number on the low end.

Here’s the thing — the work I do (the work I chose for myself and worked over the years to establish myself at) lends itself to this type of structure. To this level of input.

I rarely have to put in more hours to earn more money.

I have actually found that more work doesn’t necessarily result in higher earnings. In fact, there appears to be a point where there’s literally zero benefit in doing more work. In fact, too much more often results in less income.

Call it the law of diminishing returns.

It’s not laziness. It’s working smart to put work in its proper place. To organize money and work around your life, not the other way around.

Putting in 40-plus hours a week, particularly if it’s intense and keeps you from living a full, well-rounded life, can wear you down, physically and mentally. It’s not only the work that wears you down, it’s the absence of abundant leisure and rest time.

By limiting work today, you can help yourself maintain the energy, vitality, enthusiasm and interest necessary to do work past traditional retirement age.

I feel like I'm up for the challenge to move to Spain, in part, because of this mindset and approach. I'm not moving to Spain to work less. I already work less in America. We're moving to Spain to situate our current life in a physical and cultural environment that's better aligned with our lifestyle, social and political preferences.

Some people move to escape the grind. I understand this. If you're moving to retire, for example, this makes perfect sense.

However, if you plan to continue working, the more ideal situation might be enjoying what you do wherever you are so that, when you move to a new place, you don't have to adjust professionally at the same time as overcoming all of the other obstacles associated with making such a big change in the first place.