🚗 Time to Re-tire
FIRE BTC Issue #27 - A better alternative to traditional retirement
I’m traveling this week and haven’t had much time to write, so I asked a good friend, Kane McGukin, to share a guest post.
Kane writes The Mesh Point, a newsletter I regularly read and highly recommend. His insights on money, markets, personal finance, and the art of living well are consistently sharp and thought-provoking. You should definitely subscribe.
This piece was sparked by a reply he left on one of my tweets, offering a fresh take on the word “retire.” It felt like the perfect fit for the FIRE BTC.
Without further ado, here’s Kane…
Don’t retire, re-tire
As we turn the page on an old century and begin moving well into a new one, it makes sense that we’re experiencing a heavy dose volatility. There will always be a number of reasons for financial markets to move all over the place. But, in my opinion, the primary reason is that many of our old adages no longer ring true.
The underlying principles and values are the same, but how we apply them must change, because the world has changed.
2008 was as much about the butting of heads between two widely gaped generations as it was about chaos in financial assets. For the first time in decades there was a very wide gap in how work was desired to be done. On the one side, there sat a set of 60 year old leaders who loved yellow notepads and long meetings. On the other was a young upstart group of 30-year-olds who preferred the quickness and ease of computers, data, and instant information on iPhones.
Out with the old and in with the new.
What’s the point? Information changes, people change, and most importantly, times change. So why do we still pitch retirement as the ultimate goal? Doesn’t that sound extremely boring and painful? I’ll explain in a moment, but first, a few highlights to help finish laying the foundation.
Big picture, it’s important that in all of our social norms and customs, we maintain the intended values of our design. And that is to work. To be good, do good, be creative, and build from the resources and talents we’ve been given. That’s why an iterative process is important, so that we adjust and adapt over time.
Think about it. Late in the 19th century and early into the 20th century, 16-hour workdays were the norm. In 1938, The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) brought about another major change to work, the 40-hour workweek. This standardized the working week to five days, much like it still remains today. And hence, the 8-hour workday was born.
It’s now been roughly 100 years after The Retirement and Social Security Acts. Do we still think this should be our aim? Do we really think adjustments aren’t necessary?
I’m not bashing retirement. It’s a primary word in the title of the FIRE movement. However, I am saying that we should stop thinking about Retirement and instead consider Re-tirement.
We should not look forward to the date we retire and instead seek out the day we can re-tire. A day when, yes, we can cut back on the type of work or the hours of work, but not for the sake of sitting home in front of the TV. For the sake of doing real work, deep work. For spending time on things that we are passionate about. After all, we were designed to be beings of work.
Retire: Isn’t this the place you go to die?
Re-tire: put on new treads and dive headfirst into work you really want to do. Work that frees you and is full of purpose.
Humans find their purpose through work. That’s the intent of our design. Beings of work. Have you ever come across someone bored out of their mind? It’s because they didn’t have anything to work on. Otherwise, they would have been focused, busy, and entertained.
When we do work, we love, we find joy. That’s what is critical about re-tiring vs. retiring.
What’s lost in society today is that everyone is so caught up in jobs they don’t like. Doing things they don’t enjoy, gaining money to spend on things they don’t really care about. Land of the free… right?
So, this has led us to a point where we’re all on a treadmill of working to retire and do nothing. But the harsh reality is that when we do nothing, when we aim at nothing, when we aren’t passionate about anything… we die.
We’re hustling as fast as we can to get to death quicker??
What if instead, we focused on re-tiring? Maybe we’d get back to a society that becomes productive again. Maybe we wouldn’t need all the social benefits because we’d likely be healthier, happier, and most importantly, self-sustaining. Possibly, we’d have a society with savings? Now this sounds more like the land of the free.
After all, work creates a productive environment, productive economies, and a productive world.
No. We should not retire and stop working.
We should re-tire and do more things that bring back purpose to our lives. Getting up Monday to Friday and sitting at a desk from 9-5, banging on a keyboard and shuffling papers is not the type of work we were designed for. Now, if that fills you with purpose, by all means… go for it. If that’s the case, there’s no need to retire or re-tire!
That’s not the case for most people.
I’ve worked most of my career with wealthy clients. Very few sit at home and do nothing when they retire. There’s only so much golf that can be played or so many trips that you can go on before that gets just as boring as a 9-5. For most, it goes one of two ways. They either already have a project in mind, or they re-tire after taking a little break.
Retirement in the traditional sense is a death trap. Don’t fall it. Re-tire instead. Do all the things that free you from the pursuit of income and collecting a bunch of stuff.
— Kane McGukin, The Mesh Point
That’s it for this week. Thanks for reading!
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Until next time,
Trey ✌️
Thanks for the opportunity Trey.