By Jack Cumming

Lately, I’ve been reading many accounts of people who were fed up with the corporate rat race and who opted for early retirement. The most recent one was of an interesting woman who gave up a $390,000-a-year job at Google to retire in Switzerland. Click here for her seven-minute account of her decision and current life.

Why the Focus on Retirement?

Watching this intriguing video led me to ponder what retirement means. We used to think it meant leaving a job you endured for a carefree life of perpetual vacation. Increasingly, though, people are finding their true purpose after “retirement.” Many people dream of retiring at age 55 or even younger, and they are managing their finances to try to get there.

The dream of escaping the false, some might say “hypocritical,” loyalties and self-negating subordination of corporate life has recently engendered a movement called FIRE. FIRE is an acronym meaning “Financial Independence, Retire Early.” It espouses “saving and investing 50% to 70% (or more) of your income so that you can retire early.” As an actuary, I would quibble with two of its premises:

  • The Rule of 25: Saving 25 times your annual expenses is sufficient for you to retire, and
  • The 4% rule: A maxim that retirees can withdraw 4% of their savings the first year and then adjust for inflation in future years.

Many fee-charging financial advisers follow nothing more sophisticated than these two simplistic rules of thumb. Still, the fundamental message of FIRE is that many want to escape the shackles of today’s corporate life.

What Is Retirement?

From these examples, it becomes evident that “retirement” is less about perpetual vacation and more about financial freedom. It reminded me of a story. My college classmates and I were standing in line alphabetically to receive our diplomas. I turned to the guy behind me and asked what he planned to do after graduation. “I haven’t decided,” he responded. “I have a $400 million trust fund that I will inherit on my 25th birthday.” I can share that he went on to live a very productive and fulfilling life as an investment manager and sailing enthusiast. He qualified as a Chartered Financial Analyst and was very successful in his own right.

My dad’s retirement was short since he died young at age 72, but he equated retirement with being like inheriting a private income. The privilege of being financially independent is that one can choose how one lives one’s life. Most such people choose a life of service in one form or another. Another classmate of mine became an Episcopal priest and then went on to be a U.S. senator. He still serves as an advocate for the best of the American Dream.

The Joy of Service

As you might imagine, I have my own story of how I achieved financial independence. I’m an actuary, so naturally I was concerned with having enough money. You can read that story here. I was not born to wealth, nor did I inherit much.

My aunt, with whom I was very close, left me $1,200, but that was it. My parents’ wealth was consumed by my mother’s years in a nursing home, and she took her own life by refusing food and drink after she went on Medicaid as a ward of the state. The cause of death was “failure to thrive.”

Since moving to senior living, I discovered the corporate side of the industry. As you know, I have found purpose in trying to give more meaning and substance to the resident experience. Those same factors that impact employees, making them want to leave a $390,000-a-year job to find freedom, are also factors that can affect residents.

Many residents don’t care. They are content with retirement as a perpetual vacation. The senior housing industry is very good at delivering that vacated responsibility. Others, though, want more meaning for their final years. That may be you, and you can begin by finding that life of meaningful service without needing financial independence by doing what you can to transform senior housing into what you would want for yourself when you are no longer job-dependent.