Early in my adult life, I thought about retirement goals: no work, no obligations, and plenty of free time.

These days, I have a different perspective.

Commitments, involvement, obligations — they’re connected to purpose and meaning. And we need purpose and meaning.

The machine isn’t designed to operate full tilt forever. But neither is it designed to come to a complete halt.

To slow is to rest. To stop is to rust.

Through different seasons in life, we can adjust the throttle. Slowing perhaps, but not stopping. And if we need to cycle off, that we cycle on again.

While retirement is still a long way off for me, I now think of it not in its conventional definition (to cease work) or in its etymology (to draw back) but as a new chapter of reinvention — a moment to redraw the map.