Ask Lemmy

I've got "30 and out" at my union factory, so I'll retire at 56 which isn't so bad. Course, I'll lose my health insurance but it's free til then 🤷‍♂️

Of course there are better systems, but the rich and powerful hold all the cards.

Cry myself to sleep.

On top of being too old, I'll be too poor, so I'll probably just neck myself around ~70.

You don't.

But changing it probably involves a lot of dropping heavy, sharpened pieces of metal on a certain class of people.

Yes there are lots of useless jobs out there, but at least you're putting food on the table.

But also, you have to look at it from another angle.

Picture work as your way of trying to help advance humanity. Jobs, other than the useless ones I mentioned, all should have a reason behind their existence.

Was just talking about how difficult work is going to make the next three days, so that I can't wait until they're over, but that's another week of my life where I'm wishing for days to pass so I can try to be happy again. Lame. Lame as fuck.

Have you heard of the five stages of grief? That's probably the best first way to deal with it. No capitalist/socialist/fascist/technocratic/authoritarian utopia will be able to fix that. I don't believe there is a better system yet than what the western world already has. Maybe one day UBI will exist and everyone will have more freedom to enjoy their passions but even then it you'll still have to work most of your life.

Best you can do is figure out what you want out of your life and take the steps to do it. Like what most people have said, living below your means helps with funding your goals and protecting yourself against accidents. Find ways to do what you want now but know there's always a trade off. It isn't fair but I don't think it ever has been, except for a very privileged class of people.

Sir, “Retired” is the opposite of “Start”.

Don't think about it.

Plan the things you want to do into your life. Drop the notion "when I retire I will..." If you can fit the stuff you want to do into your Annual Leave then that's a big win. If not then you'll need unpaid leave. One good time is between jobs.

Find something you like doing, cliche but true

Even if I was independently wealthy I'd keep doing my current job. Maybe only like 1/3 my current hours but I'd still want to do it.

• I live in the UK, so I get 25 days off work, and I take full advantage of that, I rarely do staycations.

• I'm about to buy a property and I'm deliberately going to get a mortgage where my monthly payments are not as much as I can possibly afford, but a bit less. This means that it will take me longer to pay it off, and overall it will cost me more, but I will have more disposable income today to spend on life's pleasures.

• I don't have kids and don't plan to.

• I stay physically active, just simple going to the gym 5-6 days a week. And I think this is really important. It will keep your body in shape and by the time your 60 or 70, you'll be able to do much more than your average peers who spent their middle age doing office jobs followed by evenings in front of the TV. And here, instead of my 41-year-old self, I'm going to use the example of my mum. She's turning 70 next year, but it was only when she was 68 that she started taking swimming lessons and she got to love it. It was also around that time that I floated the idea to her "why don't I take you for holidays to New York". She was all "no, no, I'm too old, it's too much walking, you took me for a holiday to London when I was 55 and I was totally exhausted, I wouldn't be able to do New York at this age." Now that she's had over 1.5 years of almost daily swimming (and cycling, she's also a keen cyclist) - she said yes. She said she's feeling perfectly fine doing long walks, she's more energised, and she already gave me a list of what she wants to see in New York.

• Other than physical activity, scientists seem to agree that the other two pillars of long and healthy life are good sleep, and good diet. For the former, I recommend reading Why we sleep by Matthew Walker. And good diet means varied diet, vegetable-rich diet, and low-calorie diet (too many books agree on that for me to recommend a specific one).

I'm half done. I've kept up my health and I'm trying to improve it even more. When I hit 65 I won't be too old to do much.

But the real question should be what are you waiting until retirement to do and why not do it sooner?

I try to work as little as possible and instead learn to be satisfied with less. My spiritual life makes my material life much more tolerable.

I do have kids, though, and so whatever money I have is spent on my them. Actually that makes me more happy than spending on myself. People often worry about the cost of having children but they might be unaware of the inherent motivation and enthusiasm that children give to you.