toni phillips on the way to retire

a few months ago i ran into toni phillips, an old IISC coworker on the street. she has been happily retired for years now and i always see her walking around town with her grandkids. she a black woman somewhere in her 70s or 80s.

while we were chatting she dropped a brilliant gem that i just felt like needed to be captured somewhere. i can’t remember if i asked her for it or she just shared it spontaneously but she said:

the secret to retirement is to fill your life with things you love before you retire. that way, when you actually retire, you look back and wonder how you ever even had time to work!

and like… i could write a bunch of additional words about that but the statement really speaks for itself.

so, thank you, toni.


words / writing / post-processing
140w / 5min / 3min