I think retirement is a pipe dream...

Mr. Blue Sky said

Yeah, no offense to Rickboy or the many, many others like him- but that mentality of ‘You retire to die’ is kinda sad to me…. I just feel like there’s so much to life besides work; i had my first job at 9 yrs old, working summers on my dad’s construction sites.. my first ’outside of the family’ job was working in a fast food place at 14 yrs old.. so that’s literally almost 40 years (off and on) of grinding away and.. im sorta tired .

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I think several of us here can relate, but I can also understand the sentiment.

Bleu Dad feared retiring because so many of his friends had done so and were gone within a couple of years. As he neared retirement age he was attending more and more funerals. At first, he was the primary caretaker for Bleu Mom until she passed. He then found he could pour himself into his lifelong passion of model railroading. He also made friends his age who were active. He survived retirement, but couldn't survive a hidden heart issue. He was a Midwesterner, frugal to a fault without want. He hadn't started saving for retirement until he was nearly 50 though, having a reasonable retirement plan provided by his company in the days before 401ks and such became the norm. He lived comfortably and enjoyed his retirement.

I think that we have to retire that mentality now though.

My new neighborhood is 55+ neighborhood and I am, by far, one of the youngest in the area. Sure, you hear ambulances a little more often than you would like but the vast majority here are 75+ and maintain very active lifestyles. Many of them have been living in the neighborhood since it was established about 17 years ago and are quite healthy and always have something going on. While it seems rather cliched, the clubhouse has activities of some sort each and every day - poker nights, bunco, bingo, exercise classes, etc. - and those activities are well attended. I don't think as many folks now are "retiring to die".