Let me say something about retirement; it’s a trap! If you’re planning your life in such a way where you get to 65 and then retire and live off your savings, then do one thing, ask yourself WHY?
Why do we have this idea of working until we are 65 and then stopping? Most often it’s something which is so ingrained into our psyche from an early age, we don’t even think about it. It was never something that we planned, just accepted that that’s the way of the world. Think about that for a second. We tell ourselves that at a certain point in our lives, we are going to be old, we are no longer going to be productive, that we are going to start just wasting away. We often even believe that we’re lucky if we make it to retirement and have some time left to ‘relax’. We spend our entire lives with this little program running in the back of our minds, which is never questioned, yet has such vast implications to our physical, mental, and financial well being!
I’m approaching 40 now, and I realised that I have this deep set belief in my mind that I’ve not got long before I start ‘getting old’. I asked myself why I should accept and keep this belief? I was actually planning my life around this fictitious and arbitrary idea, without even considering it.
So, I’m doing myself a favour, and getting out of this mindset that I’m going to ‘retire’, that my body will start to give up at a certain age. I want to have some optimism about the future, and what opportunities it will bring. I look forward to being fit, healthy and productive, for a long time to come!