What is ‘Retirement’?

My parents would never have asked such a question.  For them, it was obvious.  Retirement was what you did when you turned 65.  You quit working, you goofed around, or you got old and  . . . (you know) sooner or later, and that was it. Fifteen years ago, you heard people talking about how many hobbies and creative things they would do in their “second” life, after retirement.   Today, you hear people saying they don’t plan to retire; they’ll keep working, at least part-time.  People realize it takes more money than ever to retire. If you’ve been to Walmart or Home Depot lately, you’ll notice store employees who could be retired if retirement was about age.  They’ve turned 65 and realized they don’t have a pension like their folks had, Social Security is not enough and, unless they want to go into Medicaid, government transportation, assistance programs, etc., they have to keep making an income.  They’re trading their life and their time for dollars.  Retirement is no longer about a certain age.  Now, it’s about money.  If you do not have the money to retire, your sixty-fifth birthday is no different than any other birthday.  On the other hand, some people can – and do – retire at 40 because they’ve accumulated the money they’ll need for the rest of their lives. The questions I like to ask myself and others is, if you had the money right now to do what you wanted to do, what would you be doing?   Where would you go?  With whom?  What creative juices are waiting to get flowing?  What dream is waiting to be manifested?  When we were kids, and an adult said, “Today you can do whatever you want to do, with anyone you want, but no TV and no video games,” what jumped into your mind?  What games did you like?  What creative thing turned you on?  I know I had mine, and it was getting in the middle of my “private” patch of brush and playing in the dirt with my imagination.  The blue sky above was truly blue.  My imagination kept me going for hours.  But now, as adults, we’ve pushed our dreams to the wayside in the rush and crush of our daily routines to the point that we’ve forgotten how to let our imaginations fly in the sky and inspire us to do great things. Tomorrow, most of us already know where we’ll go.  Our jobs dictate when and where we’ll be and with whom we’ll spend the day.  Put that way, it sounds more like something for kindergartners, doesn’t it?  My point is this.  ‘Retirement,’ therefore, means having options.  Being able to be mature adults.  Picking who you want to be with.  Going where your heart desires, and following what your passion inspires you to be and do.  The reality is that having these options takes money.  You need a certain amount of currency to have choices, to be fully free.  And – lucky us! – we even have choices on how we want to accumulate that currency which, in turn, provides the freedom to pursue ‘retirement.’   2009-10-29T16:25:58Z

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2009-11-05T08:05:30Z

2009-11-05T12:56:08Z

Retirement no longer greets us at a magic age, like 65. It welcomes us only when we have the money, which may be never, or possibly an age like only 40. It's about the goals and available money.