I had lunch with some of my classmates from engineering school on Friday (golf was rained out). It was interesting that all had million dollar plus retirement savings but couldn't imagine being able to retire on that plus Social Security. All but one expected to be working until age 70.

I think a lot of people are relatively content to work and don't give too much thought about retirement . . . until something happens to make them experience prolonged discontent. Sometimes the event that changes their perspective is health related. Sometimes they get the job or the boss from h3ll. Sometimes, but rarely, they get an overwhelming interest is doing something other than go to work each day.

I didn't have any health issues, but work was always getting in the way of lots of things I wanted to do. Still, I might have worked 20 more years if I hadn't gotten a job working for Satan. The experience made me examine options and "not working" seemed like the best one. After I made the decision I ended up spending about 5 or 6 years learning what I needed to know and securing the resources I needed to live before I actually did retire. It was a good choice for me, but I can see that most of my old engineering colleagues are not ready to retire. I think most of them would be miserable without their job.