Marilyn's Photos - May 26 2026 - When Retirement Began
The FIRE State of Mind revolves around "retirement" and how soon one can live off passive income.
For my generation, there was no discussion of passive income and being able to save 50 - 90% of one's income. Investing in the stock market was risky and our wages weren't high enough to allow for that level of saving.
So our discussion was where would we work to provide us for retirement. And many people chose work and companies based on that. For example, many of our peers became teachers so they could have the summer off and retire with generous retirement benefits. People working for larger organizations would be able to retire with excellent retirement income provided by company pension plans.
Our basics were taken care of by government to some extent. The government's "old age security" came into being in 1951. The Canada Pension Plan came into being in 1966.
Retirement thinking hit a zenith with my baby boomer generation.
I hadn't realized how retirement thinking had evolved. The idea of retirement in the past was directly related to worker productivity. Older workers were considered less productive and were a liability. They needed to be sent off to pasture. Companies created the incentive of retirement income to get rid of old employees.
Wikipedia says William Osler espoused this belief - the ages between 25 and 40 were the 15 golden years of plenty. Workers between forty and sixty were tolerable, and after sixty the average worker was useless. This sounds like it relates to hard physical work to me. That was what most people did in the beginning of the 20th century.
That view held for a long time and drove mandatory retirement. The age of 65 stood for decades and still defines government pension payouts.
We've moved past that time now. FIRE supporters have taken us to a new place. In the 1930s most people lived in rural settings and basically were in a subsistence living off the land scenario. Here we are now in urban areas in companies and professions not doing hard physical labour. So it is interesting that we generally agree that we don't like working in companies. The FIRE supporters have figured this out. There are those who have "retired" in their 30s and others in their 40s and 50s. What are they doing during the later part of Osler's "golden years of plenty?"
Reddit to the rescue. It asks the question: "For those of you who retired early, what has been your FIRE experience?"
So I read through a few dozen and started to see the similarities and trends. I would summarize these anecdotal responses as generally being lists of activities and state of mind - e.g. doing this or that, working out at the gym, eating better, feeling happier. And then there is much discussion on purpose in life. That's a common theme for all ages in retirement.
Too late now to consider FIRE. I am now in the mid-age of retirement - ages 70 to 80.
Isn't this an amazing picture - from the Jacksonville, Florida botanic garden. The tree in the foreground is painted blue and the tiger is painted on the wall behind.
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