Tuesday

Yesterday was my actuarial 65th birthday.  Kinda like a tax birthday, except it involves the half year mark following your last birthday.  For actuarial computations, like used in life insurance annuities and pensions, once you have passed the six-month point following your birth date, you are considered the age of your next birthday.  It simplifies the answer to the question, "How old is he/she, really?"  Hence, the 8th of July is my actuarial birthday.  Since I was born in 1949...and next January is 2014...Well, you can do the math.

The significance of age 65 is generational.  When I was growing up, and then later when I first got in to the pension consulting business in the mid-70's, age 65 was the recognized "normal retirement age".  (In my business, Normal Retirement Age is a technical term.)  NRA was the age when people were expected to retire to The Life of Riley.  I'm not sure whether that happened with absolute regularity (obviously not so much for dairy farmers!), but it was certainly a cultural line-in-the-sand.

I know that I threw 4000 Days out there as a target time line for my own retirement, but it really never occurred to me in the same sense as a specified number of years.  I measured it as a combination of, 1) how long I might have to work in order to afford some sort of retirement, and 2) how long I could mentally take the abuse of work life.  65 was not part of the equation. 

The Boomer generation has been retiring for a few years.  Those who could, I guess.  Others have elected to keep working, either because the have to or because they enjoy their work lives.  I think that it's a matter of circumstances, no the least of which is health.  Amazing what people will do if they have good health.  In today's world, that age 65 thing has been fading away.

I'm publishing this now, but will edit more in the morning.  Blogger (or my laptop) is malfunctioning.

BCOT