Design Your Retirement Before It Designs You
I have been sitting with this one for a while, because it annoyed me before it clarified itself. A while back, I started noticing something in the conversations I was having with people in their late 40s and 50s. Smart people. Experienced people. People who had given decades to their careers and were starting to think – quietly, carefully, sometimes...
I was walking through London a while back when I came across a sign that stopped me in my tracks. Its message was simple: “Don’t slow down for the wrong reasons.” I stood there longer than was probably acceptable for someone standing on the pavement staring at a sign. But it landed. Because it said in a few words what...
I want to tell you about a conversation I had with a woman I’ll call Claire. Claire was 54 and had been thinking about making changes to her life for a few years. She knew what she wanted – more space, more purpose, a health routine that didn’t rely entirely on good intentions and optimism, a clearer sense of what...
Picture this. It’s a Sunday afternoon sometime in the 1990s. Your dad is in his armchair – newspaper, cup of tea, television on in the background. He’s worked the same job for 30 years. He has a pension. He knows exactly what retirement looks like because everyone around him retired the same way. He’ll be fine. Now, picture yourself. You’re...
Let me ask you something, and I ask you to sit with it for a second. Is there something you’ve been meaning to start – really start – for months? Maybe longer? Something that matters to you, that you know MATTERS to you, and yet somehow keeps getting pushed to the next week, the next season, the next version of...
I was having coffee with a friend last month when she said something that made me laugh: “I spent 30 years being the nice girl who never rocked the boat. Now I can’t seem to stop capsizing it.” Her husband, meanwhile, had recently started asking her how she was feeling about things. Actual feelings. After 25 years of marriage. She...
Last Tuesday morning, I was out walking my dog when I spotted Margaret coming the other direction with Charlie, her scruffy terrier mix. Same time as always – 6 AM sharp. Charlie and my dog did their usual sniff-and-circle routine while Margaret and I chatted. “You’re consistent,” I said. “Same time every day.” “Oh, Charlie doesn’t give me a choice,”...
Remember when we thought the future would bring us flying cars, robot maids, and a three-day work week? Well, Gen X, we may not have the flying cars, but early retirement is actually on the table. The question is: should you take it? If you’re a Gen Xer staring down the possibility of early retirement, you’re probably experiencing a unique...
I need to tell you something personal. Something that drives everything I do. It’s about my parents. The Slow Decline My parents are in their late 70s. They spend their days in front of the TV – usually angry at the news. Their main social interactions are with the grocery delivery person and the caregiver who checks on them twice...
Last month, I found myself in a small expat community in Thailand – one of those places where Westerners go to retire, stretch their pension dollars, and live out their golden years under the sun. I wasn’t there to retire. I was there to observe. To learn. To catch a glimpse of what life might look like for me in...