21/12/2011
Most people want to retire early and are happy if they no longer need to go to work. To me retire early is a loss. It is a big loss.
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If I retire early, I would lose the opportunity to exercise discipline-muscle: There is no reason for me to wake up early in the morning and to do what I have to do.
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If I retire early, I would lose the opportunity to exercise my brain. I am no longer challenged. As long as I work, my capabilities to solve problems, to organize, to manage, to produce results, grows year after year. If I retire, these capabilities simply stop growing because they are no longer used and challenged.
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If I retire early, I would lose being a part of the world. My social network will shrink. As long as I work, my social network is growing year by year: new colleagues, new suppliers, new customers. And my capabilities to get along with people, to work together with people grow, too.
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If I retire early, I would lose the opportunity to grow in knowledge and experience. As long as I work, my knowledge and experience grows year by year. I am more experienced now than I was five years ago. To be a part of the world is the only way for me to get firsthand, gut-wrenching, personal experience in the real life.
Emerson said "Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you." How can I make the most of myself if I retire early? That's not possible. Most people want to retire early because they prefer comfort to growth. Rather than staying safe and comfortable within the comfort-zone, I prefer to go through and survived the firing-zone. I prefer growth to comfort.
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If I retire early, I would lose the opportunity to contribute to the society. As longer as I work, I contribute to the economy and society benefits from it. I also pay tax and the society benefits from the tax I pay, too. If I no longer work, it is a loss for the society and for me. For the society is the loss of a contributor and for me is the loss of growth.
Source: ALTUB Group
