POL - Retirement

I am in my mid-50s.

When I was a kid, I was told that a person will have to work and slog up to 55 years old and he will retire. When that happens, he can no longer work because the law doesn't allow him to do so. And once he retires, he will be able to enjoy his golden years relaxing, go for holidays, relax and so on. That was the dream of many of my parent's generation. And that was how many of lived their lives. Many things have changes since then. For a start, we do not legally retire (stop work) at 55 now. Today, the legal retirement age is 62, and in a couple of years, it will be increased to 65. I will not go into the reasons why this is being done. There are many reasons, all of which are valid and important. And I believe amongst these includes reasons such as a lower birth rate and a longer lifespan. And so, the legislation have been adjusted to allow people the option to work longer. And with this change, many lament that their dream of retiring early is no longer possible. And many blamed the government on all the possible reasons they can think of. Fair or not, it doesn't matter. For me personally, I have my own views and I am glad I can work longer actually.

You see, my life's financial planning has always been based on my assumption that I will die in my mid-70s. This may not be so true now. These days, people talk about living to 90, or even 100! If this holds true, all my assumptions of the resources I need to live a comfortable life (till the day I die at 75) are no longer valid. Instead, I have to now plan for a later death (ya, it sounds morbid, but that's the very practical angle to it). And that is serious. I means I have to now look towards how I can stretch my dollars for another 15-25 years. It also means I cannot retire at 55. And this means I may need to even work till I am 70 or even longer - way past my legal retirement age of 65. This is a very practical approach to retirement - retirement as a function of planning for life. But given the way things are changing, the thoughts of having to keep reinventing to remain relevant in order to survive the rat race. Sighs, just thinking of it makes me feel very tired.

But on the other hand, I also frankly cannot see myself not working after 55 or for that matter, 65. People have been known to wilt and suffer all sorts of issues once they retire. Work allows me to continuously sustain a certain level of mental engagement and that keeps me alive. And because I have years of head start and have sufficient resources saved, I would want to continue working to sustain myself rather than work to build a reserve. And with this in mind, I tell myself I want to continue working for as long as I can. The "I want to" is important. My previous definition of retirement - where one will have to stop working (becos of legislation) and go enjoy life, go on holidays, sleep late, etc - was simply too naive. Retirement is, to me now, a state of mind. I can be working but I can choose to or not to partake in the rat race, choose to do what I want to do, enjoy my work life and yet be able to do it at a pace that suits my lifestyle. With the reframed definition of retirement, a clear end date of my work life becomes irrelevant.

And certainly, with this reframing of the definition, it does provide me a better position to remind myself to not take things so seriously and live a better balanced life. Work will never end. Agree?

Hmmm...