Since MMM's preferred method of dealing with disagreement seems to be to delete the offending posts, I would like to ask some questions about the idea of retirement. Not necessarily the definition, as that's being discussed in another thread, but why some people seem to want retirement so badly that they define their free-form work life as retirement, while others of us - me! - see it as the ghost at the feast.
(The thread title is, of course, a reference to Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass":
"I don't know what you mean by 'glory.'" Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't--till I tell you. I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!'"
"But 'glory' doesn't mean 'a nice knock-down argument," Alice objected.
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean--neither more nor less."
I have commented, occasionally, that not only do I not want to retire early (even if it weren't getting a bit late for that), I hope never to retire at all. I enjoy working, and especially the particular type I do now. I've managed to remove most of the tedious parts, like fixed hours, commuting, most of the time spend in pointless meetings, etc. Yet I expect others have done some of this too, yet still want to retire.
I'm wondering if this can be explained by the way a person enters the working world. From what I've read, I've gotten the impression that MMM, like many, had a fairly typical middle-class upbringing, went through school and then college supported by parents/grants/loans, and then transitioned to a comfortable professional job without much difficulty. So that job, and following ones, had little emotional value since it came easily.
My experience was quite different: not much family or societal support, first jobs were down at the bottom of the economic ladder - agricultural work, pumping gas or doing fast food, etc - were often gotten after dozens of applications, and sometimes meant the difference between eating and not. That does, I think, tend to create a certain emotional attachment to the idea of having a job :-)
So I wonder if this is true for other people? Are you seeking early retirement, whether in the MMM sense or by a more conventional definition, or are you seeking FI for security and/or to allow you to work in a more congenial manner? Does your choice tie in with the way you entered the working world?
