We hear this all the time, people being told to work their butts off after high school and college, in a job that's usually not very enjoyable and often doesn't even pay very well, so that they can save up enough money to enjoy their “golden years”.
Let's take a look at just how “golden” these years actually are. For many people they're non-existent–because they don't actually live to see them. Around 20-25% of the population dies before the age of 65, meaning if you don't retire early, there's a significant chance you won't even get to bear the rewards, however insignificant, of your hard work. And if you do, you'll have spent the years during which most of life's milestones take place–like clubbing and dating in your 20s, and marriage and children in your 30s–working away at a boring job in a depressing cubicle doing something you take absolutely no interest in but that you have to do simply to secure food on the table, while trying to use what little scraps of spare time your employer grants you to do whatever you really want to be doing. And those scraps of time become smaller and smaller as you compete with everyone else who wants your job to show just how devoted you are to the company, agreeing to work increasing overtime because it shows you're a hard-working employee, answering e-mails at the dinner table and before you go to bed, because your boss thinks it's “important” and structuring your whole life around a company that doesn't really give a s*** about you. You might get two weeks of paid vacation a year that they're often legally required to give you, but if you decide to take that vacation, you're often still expected to do some work duties, and if you don't, well many employers might pass you up for that promotion, or even find a reason to fire you, sometimes even for taking that vacation at all.
You don't even get to use all that money you earn because between taxes and other expenses, you also have to save up for retirement because it's not like your pension is going to be particularly generous, so in reality even your high salary, if it's high in the first place, is partly illusory. But suppose you do make a good living, and spend/save/invest your money wisely, so that maybe you don't have to retire at 65. Maybe you can retire at 60, or even 50. Even at 50, it's safe to say most people's best years are probably behind them. By this point, you will long be married and quite possibly divorced, your kids have grown up and are graduating high school and college if they haven't already, and your parties and gatherings consist of hanging out with old friends at the proverbial water cooler talking about things that happened 20 or 30 years ago. You're also beginning to be considered “old” according to many younger folks' standards, and have reached an age where chronic health conditions are beginning to set in and daily medication is literally keeping you alive. High blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, sometimes even heart disease–each condition carries its own pill that you have to take daily or almost daily to maximize your chances of staying alive, and in earlier times when these medications weren't around you probably wouldn't have, hence why in the 18th century people in their 50s were usually considered “old” rather than “middle-aged.” It's not all doom and gloom, since you can still be fairly physically active and take pride in the accomplishments of your children and grandchildren, but is it a sufficient reward for working away your 20s and 30s when you could have been living life and having fun? Yet that's precisely what the modern employer expects you to do, and if you don't, you're lazy, a term they throw around with a mixture of contempt and almost visceral disgust, almost like you're a leper, even though if they can afford it they're probably lazy themselves. Rules for thee but not for me, I guess.
Of course, if you're unlucky, and your job doesn't allow you to retire early, your situation is even worse. If you don't have enough money to retire on your own at 65, you may not be able to retire at all, or be forced to ask your adult children to support you, if they're willing and able to, with growing families of their own. And if you are self-sufficient enough to retire at 65 without outside help, you're now at a point where many of the things you planned to do in old age are now simply not feasible, as your health takes a hit, your body and mind start to really deteriorate, your friends also begin to get sick and pass away, and your healthcare costs skyrocket. Assuming an average life expectancy of ~80 years, and the sicknesses that people tend to develop in the last years of their lives, you might have 10 years, maybe 15 if you're lucky, to enjoy your retirement before you become too sick to really do anything, and eventually probably end up in a nursing home.
But hey, you've earned it, this is your reward for all those years of hard work. It's like being “honoured” for a certain number of years at a company by being given an appreciation pin but no salary raise and no promotion. Not really a reward at all, yet you're still expected to work your butt off and people think you're lazy if you quit your job and try to actually enjoy your life instead of being a wageslave.