Never Retire - It's Different For Everyone

Like an athlete, you gotta think long and hard about life "after work"

I have an article hitting Medium tomorrow, which includes links to some research on retirement and mortality.

There’s a decent amount of research that shows early or “on-time” retirement increases mortality, particularly in men. Some studies also discover that healthier people just tend to be able to work longer. And, of course, there’s academic work that reports no association between retirement and death.

As usual, you take the research—and pretty much anything you read—with thoughtful consideration of your unique circumstances. Financial, physical, psychological, and otherwise.

Therefore, you have to make an individual assessment.

Will you traditionally retire at some point after the midpoint of your life? Will you Never Retire? Or something in between.

I liken these assessments to how a professional athlete has to think.

Some of them are set for life financially and never have to worry about money. Others actually do have to make money a consideration when their playing days are over, due to short careers and relatively modest earnings (over this short time frame).

Almost across the spectrum, they have to consider how they’ll occupy time when they can no longer play their sport competitively. Generally speaking, they have to account for quite a few more years—actually decades—than most of the rest of us.

So that’s the thing.

How will you spend your days after you wind down the years we generally reserve for saving for retirement?

I made the choice to Never Retire. That’s my intention. Hopefully it will be my reality.

I’d be perfectly happy doing some close variation of what I’m doing now—working what basically amounts to part-time hours, taking considerable time off to do random things and go on short and a handful of longer vacations. If I can do this until my time comes, I’d call this life a rousing success.

I don’t have the callings lots of people look forward to in retirement.

I don’t golf. Even if I did, I can’t imagine doing it every single day.

I don’t want to start a non-profit, sit on a board, or volunteer.

I also don’t want to feel like I’m rushing to fit in all the travel I’d like to do.

I’d rather spread it out between my forties and, being optimistic, into my nineties or hundreds!

That’s the beauty of breaking away from the typical task of having to amass a million dollars or more to enter your sixties in a position to—hopefully—never work again. You open yourself up to myriad options. Plus, you have a bit more flexibility to change on the fly.

In the paid version of this newsletter, we will continue to introduce, detail, and dissect strategies to manage money with our focus set on achieving and maintaining this flexibility.

Thank you for reading and supporting my work as a freelancer writer.

I appreciate it.

Rocco