Friday, October 10, 2008

Retirement

When did retirement become an actual fucking concept? It's now practically an obligation and the barometer for most Americans' success in life, but only if you start investing in your early twenties in an IRA, 401K, RBA, LMB, SPA, etc.

Tell me, is being happy something you can only achieve after selling out for 40 years? Has Social Security convinced an entire generation that by the time they start to collect a federal check their time to work is over?

Social Security, initially a short-term concept, has become a psychological safety net for a generation that the FDR administration never even contemplated. Retirement was once only an option for the ante-bellum aristocracy, but somehow it's now been imputed to everybody--and when I say everybody, I mean the middle class.

Since Baby Boomers didn't realize their freedom in the Sixties, they decided to postpone it for forty years and call it retirement. They kept the stick, but made it longer and replaced that big carrot that actually grows in the ground with a bunch of those mini-carrots that come in a plastic bag. But it can only be realized if you avoid smoking, drinking, snorting cocaine, salt, car accidents and non-organic produce.

The feds are betting you won't make it, and once you do, the carrot probably isn't as orange as it once seemed.

2 comments:

klewfoto said...

retirement makes me mad!

Anonymous said...

if you base your life around retirement you must be ahead of the curve supposedly. Studies show that when most people retire they have a shorter lifespan, looks like those that don't plan their lives accordingly live long. go figure