They want to advance in pursuing interests and finding meaning. They want to advance, but not necessarily in their corporation. They want to have enough money to say, “Take this job and shove it.” They want to be alive while they are alive, and that might mean travel or building relationships or learning.

They want to be free of a chain of command in which they are a disposable cipher.

I think people want to retire from jobs that have no meaning, that only produce money but cost as much or more in health and sense of purpose. I’ve come to believe that retirement isn’t what people really want, but rather being employed in different ways, in ways that bring life meaning, joy and purpose, really the point. Travel to distant lands may be enticing, but an outsider, an onlooker, might be fascinating for a few months or even a year, but it gets old. What will they do with the rest of their lives… if not work? Living on a beach somewhere may be enticing, but after a few months it gets old. Retiring early leaves people with a disturbing challenge. I’ve been called the “guru” of this movement, yet I’ve come to believe that there is a poison pill in the very name of it. Yet I’m identified with the FIRE movement (financial independence retire early) – that’s grown up around Your Money or Your Life, the book I coauthored in 1992 with Joe Dominguez. Like Thoreau, “…I wish to live deliberately…I want to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life… and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” I want to work for things I care about, on things that interest me, until I die.

Your money or your life vicki robin