When I closed my eyes and thought about retirement, I pictured volunteering. I pictured travelling. I pictured being able to camp with my grandchildren and try surfing in Hawaii. That’s an ideal, and I’m sure everyone wants something close to this type of life. I also pictured myself retiring earlier than the standard age of 65.

I know that things will change as I get older, move into my career, buy a house, have kids, and generally live life a little more than my 20 something years have allowed me. But I think that, by now, I know myself. I don’t want to be working until I’m 65, at least not a full time nine to five.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ll always want to work. I’m a worker. I don’t just sit around, ever. Like, ever. Even right now, I work full time, go to school, and blog, which is a job in itself (albeit a fun and relaxing one).

When I retire, I doubt I’ll be able to just relax. I’ll want to volunteer or work part time. Knowing myself, if I don’t keep busy, I’ll end up being the crazy dog lady.

But do I want to have to work for the majority of my life? No.

If you think about it, we spend a third of our time in life doing something that we don’t really want to be doing. No matter how much you love your job, there’s (usually) always something you’d rather be doing. 

Another one third of our time is spent sleeping. Lacking consciousness isn’t exactly conducive to living life to the fullest.

We spend another chunk of our time getting ready for work, or getting ourselves to work. Our waking, free hours are diminished by work, sleep, or work and sleep related activities. Oh, and trying to keep ourselves alive by eating and exercising.

So to me, it’s unfathomable to have to work for almost my entire life.

You could argue that when we’re children, we don’t work. True, but we go to school. Anything before school aged, we don’t remember.

You could argue that after retirement we have more free time. Definitely! But in our retirement years, there are only a few years after 65 where we are physically able to do everything that we could have when we are younger.

So to me, retiring early is the only way. Vacation time from work is great, but all of my dreams won’t fit into three weeks annually, and I doubt yours will either. Living life to the fullest less than 1/3 of the time isn’t feasible. And we only get one life – we need to choose how to use it very wisely.

What about you – do you plan to achieve early retirement? Late? Never?

My Thoughts on Early Retirement is a post from: When Life Gives You Lemons. Did you like the post? Follow me on Twitter, like me on Facebook, or hop on over to my blog and leave me your feedback.