THE RETIREMENT LIE...

FREEDOM IS NOT LATER, IT IS NOW

We are taught from the time we are young that life follows a simple script. Go to school, get a job, work for decades, and then one day—after all the sacrifice—you finally get to rest. This idea is sold to us as a golden ticket called retirement.

But let’s stop and think for a moment. How many people actually reach this promised land of retirement and find the freedom they were told was waiting? Too many discover emptiness, poor health, or even depression instead.

The Black community, in particular, has carried this burden in a unique way. For generations we have been told to work twice as hard just to survive, only to push our dreams, joy, and passions to “someday.” Someday often never comes.

The truth is, this retirement narrative is not a natural way of living. It was created and pushed into our culture as a tool to keep us working, consuming, and postponing real freedom.

As LanceScurv, I am here to say with intensity and clarity: life is not meant to be postponed. Our people can no longer afford to wait until old age to live. Freedom is not later—it is now.

The Trap of Waiting

We’ve all heard the words: “Work hard now so you can enjoy later.” Yet later rarely looks the way we imagine. Too many people enter retirement only to realize their health is failing, their relationships are weak, or their sense of purpose is gone.

The idea of waiting until retirement is especially damaging to us as Black people. Centuries of labor have been extracted from us with the promise of a better future that was always delayed. That same mentality still lingers: keep working, keep sacrificing, and maybe—just maybe—freedom will appear one day.

But real life is not lived in the future. It is lived in the present moment. If we do not embrace the now, we will lose it forever.

The Illusion of Security

Retirement was never designed as a long season of rest. When retirement systems were first created, life expectancy was so short that most people never lived to collect benefits. It was a political tool, not a gift of freedom.

Today, corporations, banks, and media still sell us this dream. They show smiling images of old couples on beaches, cocktails in hand. What they don’t show are the millions of retirees battling loneliness, depression, and failing health.

The system works because it convinces us to keep running toward a finish line that keeps moving further away. We sacrifice our present for a future that is not guaranteed.

The Cost to Our Health and Relationships

Stress, long work hours, and endless struggle take a heavy toll on the body. By the time many people retire, they are too sick to enjoy it. For the Black community, this toll is even heavier. We suffer higher rates of chronic illness, stress-related conditions, and premature death.

Our relationships pay the price too. How many family gatherings, children’s milestones, and simple moments of love are missed in the name of “working for the future”?

Parents age. Children grow. Time cannot be stored up for retirement.

The truth is plain: waiting for later steals the best years of our lives.

Redefining Freedom

Freedom cannot be something we wait to achieve at the end of a lifetime of labor. Freedom must be claimed now, in the present moment.

To live fully, we must break free from the lie that our worth is tied only to our labor. We are more than workers. We are creators, thinkers, lovers, builders, and dreamers.

Our people cannot afford to live by society’s script anymore. We must write our own.

Living Now

So what does it mean to live now? It means refusing to wait for retirement to do the things that give life meaning. It means finding joy in the small moments—a laugh with family, a walk in the sun, a creative project, or even rest without guilt.

It means investing in relationships, health, and community today instead of postponing them for a distant promise. True wealth is not only money—it is time, presence, and connection.

It means rejecting the illusion that life is only valuable when we are producing for someone else’s system.

Breaking the Cycle in the Black Community

The Black community must look at this retirement lie as part of the larger pattern of control we have faced. We have been told to sacrifice our joy, our culture, and even our very lives for a future that rarely arrives.

But when we stop postponing happiness, we begin to reclaim our power. We begin to live with intention and to strengthen our communities right now.

True progress will not come from waiting on systems to reward us at the end of our lives. It will come from choosing to live fully in the present while building for tomorrow with balance.

The Power of Awareness

The first step is awareness. Once you see the lie for what it is, you can no longer be trapped by it. Awareness gives you the power to make different choices—choices that align with meaning, joy, and connection.

This awareness should lead us to balance. Work is still necessary, but it cannot be the only measure of our worth. Life is not a waiting room for freedom.

When we stop chasing the illusion of retirement, we open our eyes to the reality that freedom is already available in how we choose to live each day.

The retirement dream is one of the greatest lies ever told. It keeps people waiting for life to begin while life passes them by. For the Black community, this lie is even more dangerous because it mirrors centuries of promises of freedom that always come “later.”

We must choose a different path. We must live now, love now, and create now.

As LanceScurv, I challenge you to pause and reflect: are you living your life today, or are you waiting for someday?

Freedom is not a destination at the end of decades of labor. It is a state of mind, a choice, and a way of living that can begin right now.

So let us stop postponing life. Let us stop waiting for permission. Let us rise, live, and build today—because tomorrow is not promised.

The time is now. The choice is ours. And freedom is already here.

LanceScurv