Retirement

This topic used to be not just somewhat but totally ignored by me.  Now though it’s becoming more and more tangible.  Still a ways away but something to think on.

So we have to go back to the ancient eighties and my youth.  Like probably 99% of kids anywhere I had no retirement plan in place.  Unlike most kids though I was certain that I wouldn’t need one.  I had this overly developed sense of doom about the world’s prospects in the future.  Nuclear armageddon at the very least, end times and judgment day or something like that at most.

For a more serious perspective though I had to look to my role model, my father.  Already in his sixties back then he had no retirement plan at all.  Living by the mantra of “work till I drop so why plan on retirement?”.  All very romantic I suppose, but he never stopped to consider that maybe a third alternative existed.  One in which you get crippled up in life and you need to have a retirement plan in place.  Fortunately for him and my mother, they are well off and comfortable and don’t have to worry.

I on the other hand ran around like an idiot for the first decade after college spouting this drivel about “working till i die” and not planning at all.  I even ran around without health insurance for a time and just got lucky I didn’t suffer more.

Then I got a root canal.

Nothing deflates that sense of invincibility like having to sit in a chair for an hour while a doctor does something unspeakable to your teeth with items found at your local hardware store.  Actually the procedure was fairly pain free.  The $1500 bill afterwards was not.

Then maybe it starts to dawn on you that you might not last forever.  Maybe you need to put aside something for the future or that maybe you don’t really want to be doing the same thing over and over again till you do drop dead.  So then I start looking at my financial situation and start to get educated about what i will need and how I’m going to get it.  Shocking what life costs, specially in the future.

What that experience did do (financially anyways) was make me realize that I had to mend my ways and play serious catch up with where I should be.  My physical reform would still take years but it is happily now underway.

So here we are now.  I’ve played out various scenarios over the years and I warm to one or the other from time to time.  Some of the more popular ones:

• Part time professor in some small college in a western state where the teaching load isn’t too bad and I have plenty of time to write a book or three
• Some sort of farmer or rancher, possibly overseas like in Australia or New Zealand raising….things
• Self imposed exile in some european city with some museums and cafes and plazas where old people gather to play chess and talk politics or whatever
• Volunteer work in East Africa.  Helping dig wells, teaching kids.  Seeing if I do have something worth sharing with others.

Still plenty of time to think it over.