I’ve read a lot about happiness and work, and I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about retirement. I asked myself: what would it actually look like? Would I sit on the beach and grow my hair long? Then I asked a better question: why do I want to retire? Most people retire to escape the negative stress of their job, yet we also appreciate the positive stress—solving problems, overcoming challenges, building relationships. What we often remember are the tough moments: miscommunications and difficult people, and we want to eliminate those. So I chose to change how I perceive it all. I “retired” not from work, but from stress—letting go of negative perceptions and focusing on the good: the joy of solving hard problems, the satisfaction of finishing mundane tasks, the excitement of new ideas, and the pleasure of working with great people. As soon as I made that shift, everything changed. When you focus on these things, work becomes a joy—and when work is a joy, there’s no need to retire. Retire from stress today; you don’t even have to give notice.