The Work of Living Well
Lately, especially over the past year and a half since leaving my job in tech, I’ve been thinking a lot about work and work culture.
And as I’ve supported and coached others through their own career journeys, it’s become even clearer how much our relationship with work evolves and how meaning can look completely different at every stage.
Let's be honest, it’s easy to knock work culture, and I’m definitely guilty of engaging in the meme game. But there’s also something really powerful about putting your mind + heart to use and contributing to something bigger than yourself…whatever that looks like.
I came across a New York Times article just this week about centenarians in Japan who are still working. Not because they have to, but because they want to. They spotlight a 103-year-old man who repairs bicycles and a 102-year-old ramen maker who believes, “It’s really beautiful that I can still work. Physically and emotionally, it changes the quality of my life.”
I’ve been increasingly intentional about not getting pulled into the "who can show they're the busiest or most successful" culture. After a health scare in 2013–2014 that still gives me a good amount of recurrence anxiety to this day, I learned to slow down, set boundaries, and protect my time.
But lately, I’m realizing it's not so cut-and-dry. The answer isn’t always doing less. Sometimes, it’s doing more of what fuels us, especially as we get older, face a whole new set of challenges, and our priorities and capabilities shift.
Across cultures, this pattern repeats:
🇯🇵 In Japan, people work well past retirement in ways that fit their energy and season of life.
🇮🇹 In Sardinia, older shepherds stay active and social, their work keeping them physically and emotionally strong.
🇩🇰 In Denmark, many people keep teaching, mentoring, or volunteering, not to earn, but to engage.
The research backs this up as well. People who maintain a sense of purpose as they age live longer, happier, and healthier lives.
It's funny because when people ask me about my son, of course I want to get into his academics and sports (because we live in a world that's hyper-focused on the language of accomplishments). But truly, I just want him to be happy, healthy, independent, and a good human. And maybe also a good cook (which he most definitely gets from his dad, ha). The same should go for us as adults!
It’s also made me rethink what “balance” really means, a word I have a love-hate relationship with. Maybe it’s not about escaping work, but about aligning it to the moment. Work that feels like a contribution, not a drain. Work that evolves with us.
If this topic resonates, I unpack more of it in Episode 6 of Globally Grounded: The Work of Living Well.
