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The Real Golden Years We’ve all been told—like so many hardworking, diligent ants—that we need to save up our money for our “golden years” of retirement. But ironically, the real golden years—the period of maximum potential enjoyment because we have the most health and wealth—mostly come before the traditional retirement age of 65. And those real golden years are the years during which we should be doing most of our spending, not delaying gratification. Too many people are making the mistake of investing in their future well past the point when those investments will ever pay off in ways that increase their overall lifetime fulfillment. Why do they persist? I think a lot of it is just the inertia (or, as I call it, autopilot) of doing what’s worked in the past. Sometimes it’s better to spend now, and other times you’re better off saving up (and investing) your money for a potentially better experience in the future. At the extremes, this is easy to see: Obviously, if you keep hoarding your money and don’t spend any of it, your fulfillment curve will be minimal. And if you spend all your money now, you won’t have any for the future. It’s the Ant and the Grasshopper as I see the fable: There is a time to work (and save) and a time to play, and the optimal life requires planning for both survival and thriving. The grasshopper is so focused on thriving, on enjoying himself in the moment, that he forgets about survival and ends up living too short a life. But the ant is also making a big mistake: As a result of his hard work, he will live to see another year, but he is so preoccupied with survival that he doesn’t get to enjoy summer and thrive. Neither extreme optimizes for lifetime fulfillment. Understanding that moral is one thing, but putting it into practice is a different story. At any one point, it’s not easy to know which way to go. The optimal balance between saving and spending is not obvious at all. If you’ve spent decades dutifully saving and investing your money, it can be hard to stop—assuming you’re even aware that you should stop. So what do you do? How do you achieve more balance in your life? I suggest several ways of thinking about the problem. Depending on who you are and how you think, different ones will resonate with you. Balancing Health, Money, and Time Across Your Life
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