I’m sure you’ve probably heard the saying that forty is the new thirty, but have you considered why? Is it that many people are too poor to retire at sixty-five the way they used to?

And the only reason that forty is the new thirty is so people can work that extra ten or fifteen years they need to “retire” these days (though truly retire they never will)? Almost certainly so, I think.

I guess we can also add retirement is the new “get your ass back to work” to that small list of updated truisms and retirement is “the new being put in a pine box and covered up with dirt”.

It’s also certainly so that, retirement is “the new way to share experiences with your kids” because you’ll likely be working at Burger King together.

The fact is, the old economic rules people used to live under are all out the window these days. Look around at all the seventy year old baggers, smelling of Ben Gay, at the supermarket and the waitresses with blue hair, hearing aids and hip replacements you see at breakfast diners these days.

Be sure to tip well, by the way. You try balancing three plates on your non-stroke ridden arm while your sciatica makes it feel like someone is driving an ice pick into your back side.

Brother, can you spare a 401-K? Sure, for the moneyed class, retirement is still something you look forward to (as you throw your five iron at your non English speaking caddie Raoul, during your typical Sunday morning golf session with the boys at Bushwood Country Club). It’s never been in doubt, has it?

For some, retirement isn’t an impossible dream and it’s still something that doesn’t make you want to heave a cinder block through your television set when yet another commercial from “retirement advisers” shows you a gaggle of tanned, distinguished looking middle aged models smiling, laughing and bicycling through the French countryside (surrounded by cursing French peasants).

Or whale watching on the Baja or being socially responsible and helping pygmies construct affordable apartment houses in the middle of the rain forest (just the way you’ve always wanted to).

Meanwhile the disembodied voice of Dennis Hopper is telling you, “Hey man, dig. You can do your own thing and retire the way you want. You don’t have to do what the man tells you to do”, forgetting to mention that you’ve been the man for the last thirty-eight years as a partner at Sherman, Housel, Brownard and Marx.

Of course, after a life time of responsible but mind numbing work, you know how the dream makers will try to sell you the American dream, just the way they tried to sell you the Chevy Vega or Jimmy Dean pork sausages (which you lapped up, of course).

And you know that retirement is less about opening up that little art gallery in the San Juan islands than just being able to sleep in, hang out at your own house or being able, for a change, to feel your own feet at the end of the day.

For many though, that needed their “retirement” money all through their lives to pay for frivolities (like groceries, gas money and house payments) it’s a new fact of life that, as a drone, your job will go on long after the body has given out.

No matter where you work, if you even have a job, it’s practically a certainty that your boss is going to be considerably younger than you are (and therefore, necessarily, stupider and more objectionable).

Don’t get hung up on this, and to survive in this brave new world, be sure to find out what Facebook friends are, what that crap music flowing from your boss’ ear phones is and why a You Tube video of a cat fighting with a parrot dressed like a samurai warrior is so hilarious (even though it really isn’t).

Just roll with it. Working your golden years away isn’t so awful, if you mentally prepare for it. The idea of a guaranteed retirement is a relatively modern notion anyway (like that of a life free from leprosy, Indian attacks and indoor plumbing). So just grin and bear it, since so many of us will have no choice anyway.