I took the title of this thread from a thread I saw this morning at the Motley Fool board. The kick-off post in that thread was very short. All that the text of the post added to the message in the title was: "I do want to be able to retire early!"
That's me. I view work as one of the great pleasures of life. If there were a law of the universe that said that, if you achieve financial freedom early in life, you must stop working, I would prefer to remain in debt my whole life to having to give up the joys of work.
It's not just me. When I wrote my report on Secrets of Retiring Early, I included a section called "the Goals secret" where I explained that there is no law of the universe saying that one must use financial freedom to leave the workplace behind for good. I said that it is possible to "retire" just from the aspects of wage slavery that do not possess much appeal.
You can "retire" from a work schedule that leaves little time for the other good things in life by gaining the financial strength to be able to set your own hours. You can "retire" from having to follow the dictates of pointy-headed bosses by using your accumulated capital to reduce the risks normally associated with making a transition to self-employment. You can "retire" from doing work that doesn't excite you that you do anyway because you need to do it to pay the bills by using the income from your savings to supplement the smaller income you can earn from doing work you really love. I received a number of e-mails from readers saying that that section of the report was their favorite, that they had never looked at the concept of early retirement in that way and that it made the idea a lot more appealing to them.
I don't have any problem with people who want to save to leave the world of work altogether. But I think it is a mistake to think of the concept of early retirement so narrowly so as to cover only that option. What is really signified by the phrase "early retirement" is "early financial freedom." Some want to use financial freedom to insure that they need never work again. Others want to use financial freedom to do work they always dreamed of doing and to work longer hours than they ever did when they were doing it primarily for the money.
I'm with "DoubtIt," the poster who started a thread with the same name as this one over at the Motley Fool board. I don't want to retire early. I sure want to be able to retire early though!
That's me. I view work as one of the great pleasures of life. If there were a law of the universe that said that, if you achieve financial freedom early in life, you must stop working, I would prefer to remain in debt my whole life to having to give up the joys of work.
It's not just me. When I wrote my report on Secrets of Retiring Early, I included a section called "the Goals secret" where I explained that there is no law of the universe saying that one must use financial freedom to leave the workplace behind for good. I said that it is possible to "retire" just from the aspects of wage slavery that do not possess much appeal.
You can "retire" from a work schedule that leaves little time for the other good things in life by gaining the financial strength to be able to set your own hours. You can "retire" from having to follow the dictates of pointy-headed bosses by using your accumulated capital to reduce the risks normally associated with making a transition to self-employment. You can "retire" from doing work that doesn't excite you that you do anyway because you need to do it to pay the bills by using the income from your savings to supplement the smaller income you can earn from doing work you really love. I received a number of e-mails from readers saying that that section of the report was their favorite, that they had never looked at the concept of early retirement in that way and that it made the idea a lot more appealing to them.
I don't have any problem with people who want to save to leave the world of work altogether. But I think it is a mistake to think of the concept of early retirement so narrowly so as to cover only that option. What is really signified by the phrase "early retirement" is "early financial freedom." Some want to use financial freedom to insure that they need never work again. Others want to use financial freedom to do work they always dreamed of doing and to work longer hours than they ever did when they were doing it primarily for the money.
I'm with "DoubtIt," the poster who started a thread with the same name as this one over at the Motley Fool board. I don't want to retire early. I sure want to be able to retire early though!