The issue of pension sustainability appears, eternally, in many media outlets. It is argued from certain perspectives that the welfare state will not be sustainable and that the goodwill of young people (and of young women too, although they’re almost always left out) will not be rewarded in (their) future. And we could debate and argue a lot about this, such as the fact that the proposed alternatives veer strongly toward privatization, but today I am terribly tired. I’m terribly tired of these positions that latch onto limiting the public sphere—something that has taken us so much effort to achieve and that now appears squeezed and even demonized. In my fatigue, in this specific kind of fatigue, what I really wonder is whether what is unsustainable is actually the life we’re living.
Maybe it’s tiredness that pushes me to ask, but housing is increasingly expensive, my city is more expensive and increasingly uninhabitable. Everything costs more and I wonder how those gentlemen think we’ll be able to save for retirement, and why this mechanism is being imposed. The cost of groceries is rising, but not necessarily wages (nothing new here). I go further: prices rise along with social expectations (be thin and young, be athletic, be successful at work, and if possible, a bit taller) and work demands (love what you do so you never have to work a day in your life!), but desires persist, and energy runs out. I’m not just talking about myself. I’m also talking about so many people who, even after reaching old age, still ask themselves whether this life—as it is currently organized—is actually livable. Because beyond the life expectancy statistics, which have continued to rise in recent decades (fortunately, even if some complain about it), the urgent question we should be asking is: how are we going to live those added years? Also, with burdens and demands?
We tell ourselves, with a mix of awe and vertigo, that we’re going to live longer. That we’re lucky. That the hard part is ensuring those added years are years of quality, health, and autonomy. That we need to “prepare” for a longer life. And we forget to ask ourselves whether we are collectively prepared—not just economically, but politically, culturally, and emotionally—for that extended life. I ask myself this starting from that kind of “privatizing” guilt that seems to spread like an oil slick.
Because pension sustainability, while important, is only one piece of the whole. What about the sustainability of everyday life? Of social ties in the context of endless workdays? Of urban spaces, often designed with no regard for older adults, children, or people with disabilities? And what about the pace imposed by a labor market in which everything expires quickly, and where constant availability is expected?
We hear that public systems “can’t take it.” That aging is a problem. That there aren’t enough young people to support the older ones. But what’s rarely questioned is that maybe the problem isn’t so much living longer but living badly. Living in a system that sees longevity as a cost, a burden, a technical or accounting challenge, rather than as an opportunity to rethink the social contract and reorganize resources and care.
In the face of this vague complaint, one could ask me (rightly so, of course—if you’re complaining, what’s your contribution? What’s your solution?) what a truly sustainable society would look like in times of longevity. And if there’s one thing I have, it’s opinions.
From my perspective, a sustainable society would be one in which aging isn’t synonymous with irrelevance or vulnerability. A society where the years lived add rights to experience—not fears about how I’m going to “make it” financially through the years I have left. It would be a society that values accumulated experience and existence itself, plain and simple. One in which generational transition isn’t a hidden war but a conversation among people of different ages, with their differences and similarities, honest and enriching, nourished by the search for solutions to shared goals. A society that doesn’t just seek to extend life, but to broaden it—to make it more livable, more just, more (and better) shared. For everyone, regardless of age.
It would also be a society that distributes time more equitably—time for work, care, leisure, and learning. Because if we’re going to live longer, perhaps we should also rethink how effort and contribution are spread throughout life. Maybe we could work more years, yes, but differently—more satisfyingly. With more breaks, more (and better) training, more space to care for others and be cared for. To care for ourselves. With better treatment and less hardship. A way of life that allows us to understand that taking sick leave isn’t “a fault,” that it’s not a personal burden, that it’s not something that should make us feel guilty for not contributing enough or for “falling behind.” Sustainability, in this sense, isn’t an Excel spreadsheet or an accounting ledger with “credits and debits,” but the answer to an ethical question about how we want to live and care for one another. I understand that it’s also a political response, but above all it must begin at the individual level so we can believe in the possibility of transformation.
It would also be a society that doesn’t medicalize aging as if it were a disease or turn it into a trench of healthcare spending. We know (or should know) that much of what determines our health doesn’t happen in hospitals or clinics, but in housing, transportation, social and urban environments, air quality, food. Longevity isn’t sustained with more pills, but with better social policies, stronger relationships, and more and better accessibility in our surroundings. More community. More sociability.
The question of sustainability is, deep down, a question about the path we want to take as a society—and about individual meaning too. What’s the point of adding years to life if we don’t add life to those years? What’s the point of asking people to save more for old age if we don’t ensure not only that they can, but that we guarantee dignified conditions in the present? What’s the point of living longer if we’re doing so in hostile cities, in exclusive labor markets, in relationships marked by competition and self-demand? And what meaning is it that we want to pursue as a society?
Let’s return to close, to the image of exhaustion. Perhaps it isn’t an individual symptom, but a collective signal that we need certain changes—not in financing models, but something deeper. Because there’s something profoundly unsustainable in this way of life that demands we be eternally young, productive, available, and self-sufficient.
Maybe living longer isn’t about extending the race but about changing direction. About learning to support each other. About redefining longevity as a shared good, not a threat. About no longer fearing old age as decline, and beginning to build it as a valuable, active, creative, and dignified stage of life.
Because sustainability shouldn’t be just a word attached to economic reports or climate strategies. It is also a way to care for what matters—which, for me, is the people who make up what we call “society.” It is also about asking what kind of relationships, cities, policies, and narratives will make it possible for us to have not just longer lives, but lives that are good and worth living.
And that—that, now that I think about it, even from within this fatigue—is no small thing.
