The paragraph I rewrote – and what it taught me

Shortly after I retired, in a quiet moment of reflection, I wrote a paragraph about what my future might look like. I called it “My Future: 60–90.”

I wrote about stepping into what I described as “the last thirty years of my life.” About no longer dreaming or aspiring for myself. About my sole focus being on helping my children. About feeling content with whatever I was given.

Then I read Matthew McConaughey’s Greenlights. And two and a half weeks later, I rewrote the paragraph.

Not because the original was wrong. But because a single idea had shifted everything: “Have immortal finish lines.” A roof, he writes, is a man-made thing. A ceiling on possibility is something we impose on ourselves – not something life imposes on us.

I crossed out “60–90” and wrote “60–Infinity.”

And I have been living differently ever since.

What financial planners get wrong

The retirement industry plans for you to live to 87. That is the average life expectancy used in most South African pension calculations, and it shapes everything – the withdrawal rates, the investment horizons, the implicit message that your useful years are finite and known.

But here is the thing about averages: some people fall below them and some people exceed them. And more importantly – you are not an average. You are a specific person, with specific choices to make, about a specific life.

What happens when you stop planning to age 87 and start planning as if time is on your side?

Everything changes.

You invest differently in your health – not as maintenance, but as preparation for decades of living. You invest differently in your relationships – not as a comfort, but as the infrastructure of a long and rich life. You invest differently in your purpose – not as a hobby to fill time, but as the work that makes the morning worth getting up for.

The three-act life

The ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras believed that three was the perfect number – the symbol of harmony, wisdom, and understanding. Every story has three acts. Every life does too.

The first act: the years of formation. Learning who you are, finding your footing, becoming.

The second act: the years of building. Career, family, contribution, accumulation.

The third act: the years that most people underestimate, underinvest in, and underplan for. Thirty-plus years – not a footnote, but a feature. Not a winding down, but a different kind of beginning.

As British-American anthropologist Ashley Montagu put it: “The idea is to die young as late as possible.”

That is a philosophy worth building a life around.

What No Expiry Date Living actually means

It does not mean denying that you are sixty. It does not mean pretending that time is not passing, or that the body does not age, or that loss does not happen.

It means refusing to accept a ceiling on what is possible. It means planning with a horizon that is infinite rather than arbitrary. It means choosing – deliberately and repeatedly – to keep moving, keep building, keep becoming.

The three pillars of No Expiry Date Living – Purpose, Health, and Tribe – are not aspirational ideals. They are practical necessities. A reason to get up. A vehicle to carry you. People to make the journey worth taking.

Together, they form a roadmap for a third act that is not a diminished version of what came before – but something genuinely new. Something that only becomes possible once the career is behind you and the question of who you really are, and what you actually want, can finally be answered on your own terms.

You do not have an expiry date.

Plan accordingly.

No Expiry Date Living is the philosophy behind everything Janine does – her book, her coaching, her speaking. Start with The Retirement Roadmap, or book a private session to begin designing your third act.