Decide what you want to live for. I see three reasons to live: discharge duties, pursue personal goals, or gather hedonistic enjoyment, of which there are many kinds but let’s just summarize as sex, drugs and rock and roll. In the first two cases, if you expect to also get paid for them, the goals are probably never reached and thus you never retire and never stop earning. The third option reduces lifespan anyway, running out of money and health/lifespan roughly at the same time can actually be a kind of local optimum.
Quite honestly, I only save for emergencies. By emergency I mean 3 years unemployment. OK I can expect some state pension (EU), but generally speaking I don’t see an old age spent in poverty a threat, if my naughtier, hard-drinker etc. subagent wins, I cannot really expect to live long, and most likely the only way to beat that subagent is to develop another one that has some kind of life goal, and if that happens I will probably never retire from that, and it is also likely I will always get paid for that. If for example I retire and start writing and realize nobody buys my books, then I am maybe at year 1 of my three year unemployment fund so obviously then I un-retire.
Decide what you want to live for. I see three reasons to live: discharge duties, pursue personal goals, or gather hedonistic enjoyment, of which there are many kinds but let’s just summarize as sex, drugs and rock and roll. In the first two cases, if you expect to also get paid for them, the goals are probably never reached and thus you never retire and never stop earning. The third option reduces lifespan anyway, running out of money and health/lifespan roughly at the same time can actually be a kind of local optimum.
Quite honestly, I only save for emergencies. By emergency I mean 3 years unemployment. OK I can expect some state pension (EU), but generally speaking I don’t see an old age spent in poverty a threat, if my naughtier, hard-drinker etc. subagent wins, I cannot really expect to live long, and most likely the only way to beat that subagent is to develop another one that has some kind of life goal, and if that happens I will probably never retire from that, and it is also likely I will always get paid for that. If for example I retire and start writing and realize nobody buys my books, then I am maybe at year 1 of my three year unemployment fund so obviously then I un-retire.