If I gave up my job, what would I do all day? Sit at home knitting my own bus pass? My brain would log me out due to inactivity and I wouldn’t be able to remember my password.

Then again, nobody on their deathbed ever said, “Gosh, I wish I’d spent more time filling in forms and filing paperwork.” There are no luggage racks on hearses, no pockets in shrouds. And, once you hit 60, time starts fugit-ing like there’s no tomorrow. Retirement is when you stop living at work … and start working at living.

Yet medics maintain that the only proven paths to longevity are the dull ones: eat sensibly, exercise more, drink less… I actually doubt that giving up wining and dining increases your longevity, it just feels that way. I want to behave, I really do, but there are just too many other options. Hitting your 60s is nature’s way of telling a woman to drink more champers and do more horizontal tango.

So, perhaps my mid-60s really is the moment to strive for some work/life balance? My current plan is to work and play with more passion than ever. Everyone’s obsessed with the length of life, but I want to live its width and depth as well. I want a life in 3D. I want to die young, as late as possible.

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Retirement doesn’t mean you’re at the end of something; you’re just at the beginning of something else. It’s not goodbye, but hello to a new adventure.

Adventure before dementia, that’s our motto. Not that I’m making light of that terrible affliction, but you never know what’s around the corner. So, I’ve told my accountant that I’ll see him after work … on the dance floor.

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