I find that one of the biggest troubles with the current version of the "American Dream" is that it really doesn't take into account the vagaries one encounters in their dotage.
Madison Avenue has defined a retirement as an extension of one's work years, the money comes in and can now be spent on self-absorption, leisure, and recreation. Everyone will own their own 2,000+ SF home, and one day a week the beautiful blonde grandchild will come over to be cute and deferential.
Life will be dominated by hobbies and lunches with friends in upscale restaurants, where the homogeneous group will show perfect dentition while exchanging photos of the most recent trip to the continent.
In other words....it looks boring as hell, a rich white version of heaven with no purpose and no meaning.
I can't get there from here anyway. Unless one of my infrequent MegaMillions tickets pans out, I will be working until I am seventy or so. A while ago, it may have bothered me, but either I am super-good at rationalizing the inevitable or I am finally growing up. I haven't decided which.
So I have to figure out what the hell I will doing to occupy my time during the next ten or so years that will probably be my future contribution to the age histogram.
I think that I will just glide through these last years. Coast might be the better term. I don't have to worry about scrambling up the corporate ladder, I closed the door on that a long time ago. So now it is just the mundane task of paying down bills, and saving money.
Going to work every day provides me an outlet (albeit boring, but an outlet just the same). Sitting around pursuing a "hobby" will lead me either to drink heavily or to golf, both activities which interest me not-even slightly.
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