Consider this a public service announcement about early retirement that You don’t hear that often (if at all).
Stumbling around on Twitter a couple months ago I ran into a series of tweets that shocked me.
Apparently a fellow money blogger had retired and things had not gone so well — not because of money problems, but because of health issues.
I contacted the wife through Twitter and asked her if I could share their story. She gave me her permission.
I want to use it to open up a discussion about health and retirement.
Health and Retirement
Here are the series of tweets if you want to read them (and the responses) yourself.
Here are her words:
Mrs. PIE here.
I’m sorry to say that it’s time for us to shut down our little blog. 🙁
It has been gathering dust for a while, and not because we retired early and sailed off into the sunset without even a goodbye
The truth is a heartbreaking story that we want to share.
We retired in June 2018 and spent the most wonderful summer with the kids doing all the thing we had been looking forward to. But by the end of October things had become very strange with Mr. PIE. He had problems with memory, typing, balance and simple daily processing tasks.
A seizure sent him to the ER. Just 4 months to the day from retiring he had brain surgery to remove a mango sized Glioblastoma.
Glioblastoma is an extremely aggressive and incurable brain cancer.
Of course this turned our new lives upside down. We had just moved to the area, but quickly found that our new friends and neighbors were the very best kind of people. We were swept up in their love and care.
Following surgery Mr. PIE had 6 weeks of daily radiation treatments along with an oral chemo drug. Thanks to our new rural location we drove 1.5 hours each way every day, sometimes in white knuckle snow conditions. By Feb this year Mr. PIE began taking a clinical trial drug as part of a trial running at The Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.
We travel to Boston monthly. Right now he’s extremely fatigued. He has regained the use of his right leg after it becoming immobile due to surgery. He has some minor memory issues, and can’t drive. I do all the household and kid related tasks. But he’s still here.
Needless to say this is not the retirement we envisioned. Hiking, skiing, traveling etc is no longer on the agenda. But thank goodness we are retired. We don’t have to worry about missed work and lost salaries.
In true PF blogger style we feel we should share some valuable things we have learned along the way.
1. Don’t think that you can “healthy lifestyle” yourself out of needing great medical insurance. Brain cancer is rare, but unpredictable no-fault things can, and do happen.
2. When budgeting for early retirement be prepared to pay your full health insurance out-of-pocket max in any one year. Or maybe in every year.
3. Our saving grace has been our conservative planning. We planned a very low withdrawal rate with plenty of wiggle room. Our FIRE budget has been changed significantly, and now things to be frugal about are simply paid for. Cleaners, landscapers, childcare….
4. “if necessary we’ll just go back to work”. We said it because it’s easy to say when retiring early, it’s a nice safety net. What if going back to work is no longer an option?
5. If and when you’re ready to pull the plug on work, or to make a major lifestyle change, JUST DO IT! Don’t wait. Cliché coming….tomorrow is not guaranteed.
It’s a very sad story. If you want to help them, here’s a link to do so.
My Thoughts
This story brings up a TON of issues that most people either ignore or don’t plan for.
Here are some things I want to point out/re-emphasize based on the above:
- Tomorrow is not guaranteed. This is why I recommend retiring (assuming you ever do want to retire) as soon as you reach your number. I personally wouldn’t want to be working all the way until I passed. But since I retired early, even if I go tomorrow, I know I had a chance to have some very awesome years free from work before I did.
- You obviously need some sort of medical coverage and a plan to pay for care. We are happy with 1) Samaritan Ministries (others also like Medi-Share, which is similar), 2) the doctors we have assembled to care for us, 3) our ability to self-fund any extras if we had a substantial bill.
- As she notes, this is why you plan and have a margin of safety built into your retirement. Things go wrong and if your budget is so tight it can’t afford any slip ups, you’re setting yourself up for failure.
- The fact that they couldn’t go back to work highlights the need for MULTIPLE margins of safety. You need several back-up plans because if one of them becomes a non-option (like going back to work) then you have others to pick up the slack.
- I want to repeat her last point: “If and when you’re ready to pull the plug on work, or to make a major lifestyle change, JUST DO IT! Don’t wait. Cliché coming….tomorrow is not guaranteed.”
Again, if you’d like to help them, here’s where you can.
Any thoughts on the above? Is this sort of issue spurring anyone to retire early? Or maybe keeping someone at work (for the insurance)?
I worked most of my career in a hospital. This is all accurate and true. I’ve seen it happen many, many, many times.
Life is a gift. Enjoy it while you can!
My thoughts and prayers to these folks. I retired permanently in 2003 and in 2007 suffered from a tumor in my brain. Fortunately for me and my family I regained near full capacity and with therapy things have turned out well. You never know what life will bring. Financially my medical expenses were handled by insurances and personal costs were minimal, but still excessive in my opinion. . Good financial planning, a healthy savings account which covered daily and short notice expenses and neighborhood friends who assisted were the reason’s our family got through this event.
Good information provided here. Thank you 🙏🏻!
Although I officially retired from public education at age 57, I’ve actually been working in a pre-retirement job ( I do recommend this) that’s been very flexible and easy to fit in to my world.
So, now I’m 65 and my wife is 62 — she will retire for good on August 5th and start drawing her teacher pension and social security and I’ll follow her in full retirement on December 31, 2020. I will continue to draw my teacher pension and on January 1st, 2021, I’ll start drawing my SS —- health care is offered through Texas Teacher System and for me, Medicare is part of my plan now.
We’ve worked hard to make sure the following streams of income were in place:
TRS pension – both ✅
Social Security – both ✅
Investments – both ✅
Rental homes – both ✅
Consulting – me only and only a maybe 😎
Well done Razorback 14! Teaching is hard work at lower pay (vs other potential careers for equally talented people), but you’re now blessed with pensions and healthcare benefits for the rest of your lives. The lesson for those of us with hard work and higher pay is that we still have to be equally frugal, in order to make up for not having pensions and to cover our own health insurance in retirement. Another lesson is that I suspect people starting their careers overvalue starting salaries and undervalue eventual retirement benefits. Yours and your wife’s are worth millions in the bank (and I’m sure were well-earned). Even when you have saved a good amount (as I have), facing a fully self-funded retirement is scary.
Thank you. Yes, we have worked hard at our low paying jobS —— years and years of helping kids, parents and community members has been a thrill and I’m glad I traveled down this long and dusty road —- we’ve actually reflected back and we both feel rich —- more than rich, actually.
Formula for success –
Home – paid in full for years – were almost 25 yrs in the same home –
Cars – we’ve never bought a new vehicle
Rentals – most Homes are paid in full
College education- we paid ours and both our sons in full —- cash flowed with no remaining debt.
Side hustles – too many to discuss, but I believe in this concept – big time.
Budget – each month , we watch our dollars .. no set budget.
Current Net Worth is just North of $5 MM
If two educators can do it, anyone can —- but I’m still a little nervous to leave the world of accumulation and enter the world of becoming a true consumer—- my wife keeps telling me not to worry about this phase of life…. she’s tell me that she will mentor me well. Ha
We are so blessed and can’t wait to see our grandkids even more. Oh, and our two boys and their wives —- but mainly our grandkids! Lol
“If two educators can do it, anyone can” – well said and a strong lesson there. Very impressive list – well done indeed. I’d say, with >$5M, pensions, and rental properties, you need not be nervous. (It also sounds as if, like me, you married a smart lady who can keep you grounded – another well done to you!) All the best to you and your kids and grandkids. Enjoy your well-earned retirements!
Brutal stuff. Unfortunately, I see it every day at work. It is one of the biggest reasons that my family is building income streams outside of work so that we don’t have to trade time for money, and why we are saving a huge portion of our salary each year to reach FI by 45.
Life can be cruel. Medicine has taught me that.
So sorry this family had to learn that in a very real, and painful way.
Jimmy / TPP
Lief at Physician on Fire had his Sunday Best post give an update recently. Sorry to say, if you check the twitter account for PlanInvestEscape she gave the official word that he died.
Sorry to hear that! Not only do I hope to retire early, I’m working on transitioning into becoming self employed so I can work on the things I want to during my wealth building phase. I really wish things were different in regards to insurance.
I honestly have a real concern about Healthshare ministries.
My mother recently had a massive GBM that eventually (8 months) ended her life. We were very aggressive in putting her on hospice when it became clear her prognosis was poor and her quality of life was also dismal. Raditaion would not have helped, and her tumor markers were also not positive for Temodar (the oral chemo referred to in the post. That said, her care for those 8 months, including 2 extended ICU stays which included one before the tumor was found (she had a hemorrhage that obscured the tumor) and a second one prior to and after the neurosurgery to remove the baseball sized tumor. Her billings were >$500K including 5 weeks in acute rehab. More if you include the 24hour aids my dad had to support her care at home. You are telling me that a bunch of people are going to write checks to cover all that care? Honestly, I don’t believe it.
Thankfully, my parents have long term care insurance, as well as supplemental insurance from her years as a teacher, so what Medicare didn’t cover, her supplemental did.
I think promoting those health ministry insurance that is not appropriate for the vast majority of people who don’t subscribe to those beliefs seems irresponsible. I’m glad it has worked out for your family. Your medical expenses have been seemingly minor. What if you developed malignant melanoma and required immunotherapy that can run to $100K/month. Are you confident they would cover that? I again, am skeptical.
What if…that’s always the conversation with insurance, isn’t it?
I can imagine situations when almost all insurance coverage isn’t enough, doesn’t do what’s expected, what’s wanted, etc. Just look at our conversation the other day with LTC insurance. So does that make all insurance wrong/inappropriate?
I am confident given our insurance and finances that we could cover a $1 million event.
As always, everyone needs to base all their financial decisions on their specific situation, goals, etc. This is no different.
Insurance is money pooling run by a company to ensure the benefits are provided and the members pay enough to cover the costs. If the company cannot successfully do this people will stop buying the insurance and they will be out of business.
Medical Sharing is money pooling run by a company to ensure the benefits are provided and the members pay enough to cover the costs. If the company cannot successfuly do this people will stop buying the product and they will be out of business.
Insurance has the benefit of a state insurance commissioner enforcing legal rules. Medical sharing does not. That is the only difference.
Health Sharing ministries have been around for 25+ years. Do you think in that time they have never had anyone on their plan who had the scenario you describe? Surely there have been hundreds. They would be eager to tell the story of how they got screwed. Plenty of people think health sharing ministries are a scam and are free riding with Obamacare as a backup. I have seen countless articles arguing exactly that. The incentive for these people to find examples of what you describe where they refused to pay are quite high. All I have ever found is people who are complaining that they didn’t pay due to not meeting their stated exceptions such as pre-existing conditions and uncovered procedures, but they think they should have paid anyway because they don’t think that should have been a valid reason to deny the claim. Just as with insurance, the terms are spelled out clearly. Many people don’t read the terms carefully. There are plenty of stories of people with all kinds of insurance who think the companies are screwing them too. Homeowners policies that don’t cover water damage etc. The fact that the company did exactly what they said they would do and the consumer didn’t realize what they were buying does not make the consumer any less upset. It also makes the company completely legit whether they be insurance or medical sharing.
I hear you in that the incentive for the naysayers to find examples of refusals to pay is quite high. But, the incentive to highlight extreme situations where is has worked out is also quite high. Yet, it’s difficult to find either the ministries themselves or members highlighting such cases.
That’s a fair point. I hadn’t really thought about that. I had found examples of them paying for more manageable costs that exceeded the deductible (Medi-share did for me, paying out bills that exceeded the deductible by a 5 figure sum), but it is true that I haven’t seen an article about them paying a 7 figure bill. I do believe the desire by the naysayers is far higher than those that are satisfied to go find the counter examples, but it would be good to see a story from someone with a 7 figure bill.
To me this is an example of why everyone should live a life of purpose at every stage of life and should find work that adds joy to life instead of some kind of indentured servitude. Life isn’t something that happens after retirement or that should even improve after retirement. It should already be good, period, whether you are twenty or ninety-seven. Dying young is unfortunate but not because it robs you of retirement years, they are just years, no different than working years, raising kids years or childhood years. They are all great gifts with their own advantages and challenges.
I agree, but much more easily said than done. The trick, of course, is finding work that adds joy and also an adequate income. I’m sure there are plenty of factory workers, restaurant staff, office workers, farmworkers, etc, that find joy in those jobs. I’m also sure that many people do such jobs as ‘indentured servitude’ that they have no choice but to endure in order to secure food, clothing, and shelter. Of course, for them, there are other sources of joy – family, hobbies, etc. Nevertheless, their retirement years will be different than their working years, simply because they don’t have to work anymore. Hence the good ESI advice to make such jobs unnecessary asap.
I was sorry to read in her twitter feed that he just passed April 10th.
I’ve had two co-workers become seriously ill and pass before they got a chance to retire. I was both happy and stunned how the company as a whole and the employees rallied around them, supported them, and allowed them to work as much and as little as they wanted over their two year ordeal. In fact, the last 6 months they received a paycheck as a full time employee as they were in hospice.
For me, that changed my entire perspective both about FIRE and retirement in general. I’ve hit my numbers and know at some point I’ll retire, but for me work is not a bad thing and I enjoy what I do. For far too long I equated work with something I should do as quickly as possible and retirement as a end goal. For me, I hope my working years and retirement years look exactly the same. I do meaningful tasks, I travel, I enjoy friends and family, and I take as much free time as I want or need.
I say all that just to point out that if your working years are that unfulfilling that you look to retirement to enjoy life, you need a new job or a new career.
Agree, Paulz. But, as I replied to Steveark’s similar comment, finding a fulling job is easier said than done, especially for people from lower socio-economic backgrounds. Someone has to ‘do the dirty work’ and, while some may find such jobs fulfilling – and I believe there is nobility in ANY job well done – I suspect the supply of such people is far lower than the demand. “If you don’t like your job, get another one” is valid advice, but much harder to do for some than others.
@Russ So very true. In addition to my full-time job, I have a part-time job that would be considered to be in the service industry. It’s definitely a struggle for many people and I wish there was an easy answer. So many bad decisions combined with limited options so I have great empathy for the plight you outlined.
So many questions without good answers……
Indeed, Paulz – all the best to you and yours!
Wow, just Wow. Great story to share even though it is heartbreaking. Thank you for sharing. It is very sad to know that he passed away.
I agree with the key points made. I find there is almost a innate bias in people that they will completely cringe at even a 1% chance of running out of money in 30 years but rather they will work 3 more years of their life banking on the need for that money at age 90 when age 90 is certainly not guaranteed for anyone.
I find I am a bit older than many FIRE advocates (will be 55 this year and hope to fire in less than 2.5 years) which I think changes my perspective a bit. My Father-In-Law once told me something that rings in my ears constantly as I get older – “Life is like a roll of toilet paper, it goes way faster near the end”. I think he was quite right.
Carpe Diem
“Life is like a roll of toilet paper, it goes way faster near the end”
Brilliant! I’m definitely ‘burrowing’ this quote!
Two acquaintances (age ~50) died of heart attacks and a terminal cancer diagnosis in the extended family (age < 50) convinced me to jump out of the corporate world and into retirement last summer, just shy of my 44th birthday. It's been a great move for me; volunteering my time and spending more time with family. I do miss the problem solving and occasional interesting travel locations of my previous job, but overall it's been a strong positive move.
As for healthcare, we're on an ACA plan that meets our needs well.
Very sad situation indeed and just highlights how tenuous life is.
My father passed away at the age of 50 because of cancer and prior to getting sick he would do long work days as a physician. He never got to enjoy the golden years of retirment.
Honestly this is one of those things that freaks me out. I was fortunate to retire early (at 48) late last year. My wife has always stayed home. We are thankfully very healthy but you just never know. The one thing that “keeps me up at night”, other than worrying about our kids (that will never end), is the unexpected large health insurance need.
We were fortunate enough that our insurance coverage continued for 6mo’s post retirement but it ends next month. Due to some lingering payments we still have a large W2 income in 2020 and are well outside the ACS subsidy range. Based on tons of research our plan is to go with Samaritan for the remainder of the year and then try to jump on an ACA plan beginning in 2021 when we can better control our “income” and maximize any subsidies. We pray and cross our fingers that nothing like this surprises us throughout this year as I do wonder whether any of the ministries would be able to cover such a huge cost.
Keep up the good work.
Its a tough balance for some of us on the path to early retirement.
Do we work longer to save more and have more cushion or do we pull the trigger and retire now provided we’ve hit our number to cover our expenses, so we can enjoy more freedom before we get older and can’t do as many things?
We’ve been on this path for several years and don’t have any pensions, rental income or retirement healthcare to assist us in early retirement.
We’ve simply saved as much as possible and using the 4% rule and have hit our number to cover expenses using health sharing for health insurance (I know its not insurance).
We also have three teenagers. Although their college savings are covered, any other unusual future expenses are unknown.
I think there will always be the unknowns and if we are always holding back because of fear of those unknowns, we’ll never pull the trigger.
Hi George – This is a great topic for an ESI discussion and also one with no ‘right’ answer. We are in the same boat – I’m 57, my wife is 59, and we could retire tomorrow IF all we wanted to do was cover expenses using the 4% rule – both daughters through college and self-sufficient, but also no pensions, rental income, or retirement healthcare. How much of a ‘financial cushion’ vs. how much extra ‘retirement time’? That’s the $64,000 question, isn’t it? I keep reading blog entries and other articles saying that, thanks to rising healthcare costs and life expectancies, the 4% rule is no longer conservative enough. Of course, it all depends on ‘what kind of lifestyle you want to have’, ‘what your risk appetite is’, etc. Not easy questions to answer, for sure. For now, I’m not ready to jump (retire), but I sure do think about it a lot – ha.
Russ – thanks for the reply. Its good to know that there are others out there on a similar path that don’t have pensions and rental income that can share strategies for early retirement.
I don’t believe that the 4% rule is no longer conservative enough. I think if you’ve covered your healthcare costs in your budget expenses including both the cost of the insurance (or sharing) and the other medical expenses (deductibles, dental, vision, etc.) and you have the appropriate cushions in place to absorb a market downturn (2-3 years of cash, dividends that can supplement income, and/or the appropriate balance of bonds/stocks), then I think the 4% rule is fine. You can also use a 3.5% withdraw as an added measure of safety.
At 57 & 59 you only have 8 & 6 years to cover before Medicare kicks in at 65.
We’re both 50 and have 15 years to plan healthcare coverage for.
I’ve heard and read from others that it is very difficult to pull the trigger when the time comes no matter how prepared you are.
I agree completely that we are all trying to strike a balance between FIREing and making sure that we have all our ducks in a row. And since personal finance is, if nothing else, highly personal, we all are working on our own jigsaw puzzle.
If you are interested in some darn great in depth SWR blog posts and analysis I would strongly suggest you take a look at Big Ern’s work at Early Retirement Now and Michael Kitces’ work at Nerds Eye View. Both of these gentlemen put together work that I honestly have to read 3x to absorb.
Our 4% is going to be plenty for us. We are going to have a hard time spending it all. Wife will have a $60K pension in 5 years, our RMDs will be over $100K a year.
Good for you (sincerely). Your wife’s pension is a privilege / good fortune enjoyed by an ever-shrinking minority. My wife worked over 30 years for a company with a seemingly great pension plan. But, they ended up way underfunding it and eventually converted it to one time lump sum payments that were worth only a small fraction of the value of the original lifetime pension payments. We will be entirely self-funding our retirements now. Such is life – sometimes you win, sometimes you don’t.
Thank you for highlighting our story. You have placed emphasis on all of the important parts of my message.
As others have noted above, David did indeed pass away just a few weeks ago. My comments about having buffer and being conservative planners is all the more important.
I believe that you wanted to link to my personal fundraising for the Jimmy Fund. You can find that here:
http://danafarber.jimmyfund.org/goto/Emilycalderwood
Yes, I linked to the one you sent me via Twitter originally, but updated to this one now.
So sorry for your loss.
Sorry for your loss. Cancer sucks!
My 8 y/o son was diagnosed with Ewing Sarcoma, a bone cancer, two years ago. After almost two years of chemo and 10 surgeries, including the amputation of his left leg, he is now 3 months NED (no evidence of disease). The various hospitals and doctors charged our insurance close to $1.5M over the past 2+ years. We have paid around $12K of that amount thanks to the max annual out of pocket provisions over the last three calendar years.
Thank you for letting ESI share your and Dave’s story. Out thoughts and prayers are with you and your family.
Being a parent also, I feel your pain and suffering in those two years of your life, I’m so happy to hear that your son was able to overcome this cancer. Life throws curve balls and most important thing is to be prepared and embrace of what we have now.
Thanks, cancer sucks but it does provide perspective. I would have traded places with him in an instant. We are very fortunate to still have him.
This is a terrible loss. And so sad for the family.
I’m new to FIRE. i expect I am like many others focusing on FI and escaping corporate draining jobs. I have hobbies, plans side hustle and enjoy exercise/surfing. But I am still concerned about stores that retiring really can lead to dying early. That not having a 9-5 job (7-6) can lead to a loss of focus and potential health problems.
I know several people who retired and died within year or two of retiring. However to be fair part of the reason they retired is because they weren’t feeling all that great to start with and their health had a hand in their decisions. In other words you have to be careful of falsely identifying causation with coincidence. You hear more about the people who retired and died shortly after because it seems more of a shame so it stands out more and people talk about it more, where as someone who’s been retired ten years and passes in their seventies is sad, but not considered gossip worthy. I can say with confidence that I know way more people who retired and are living good lives than those who retired and died in short order.
I would also think being unfocused is more likely to lead to lack of activity which is likely to lead to health issues more so than a disease rearing its head because you aren’t “working” a 9 to 5. What I find humorous is a friend who retired a year or so ago found himself feeling ill three months after retiring and then got progressively worse over a week or two. He called his doctor and swore if they didn’t him that day he’d go to the emergency room. He later told me he thought the same thing about the idea of retiring leading to dying early and was really scared (he retired mid 50’s). They ran some blood tests, turns out the medications he was taking were dosed too high because he was de-stressing so much from the job he’d retired from. He didn’t need as strong a dose to get the same affects. Pretty much halved his medication and he was fine. So if anything, chances are the job is what is killing you.
My blood pressure went down after I retired. Next time I go to the doctor, he might take my dose down a bit to wean me off. I wasn’t stressed from work, I was stressed from being bored off my A@@ and trying to work until I vested in my pension. Getting let go was the best thing they did for me.
I have been retired just over a year now. I am 54. I don’t miss going into the office and dealing with bad bosses one bit. Wife will retire in a year at 53.
This article hit home for me. In a period of 10 months, I lost my father, brother and mother. My older sister who I talked with everyday worked in the medical field for over 40 years, completely dedicated to the profession. She lived to work, not work to live. We made a bucket list and we all went to Bora Bora to check our first item. My wife and sister were best friends and she was so good to our kids. I talked to her about retiring and enjoying life and traveling and visiting with us. She never had a sick day, and then she found out she had cancer. Five months later she too passed. It made me reassess my work plans.
I loved my job, had wonderful people working for me, but after losing my family all in a short time, I realized it was time to retire and appreciate every day, because you don’t know what tomorrow brings. I have been retired almost 2 years and if I knew how wonderful it would be I’d retired earlier. Don’t take life or health for granted, love your family and friends and retire as soon as you can. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of my family, so remember to build memories along the journey.
My husband and I have always tried to follow an approach in line with the ESI ethos of enjoying life now, planfully and within reason. Some folks ascribe to a FIRE approach that is too hard core for me; I don’t want to sacrifice to the point where I am denying myself enjoyment now, in hopes of having a great life in the future. Anything could happen to me today, I don’t want to put off enjoying my life.
I’m trying to live my life by “having a BLAST” (Balanced Living And Savings Techniques)….
a little philosophy I coined for myself that prepares me for FIRE at an enjoyable standard of living now 🙂
Good medical insurance was critical to my decision to retire. Also, in my planning I set aside $500k for my wife to pay for long-term memory care for me. My dad’s mother died of Alzheimer’s and my dad has been in memory care for many years. $500k may not be enough, but there are other options after that.
Very moving, and heartfelt. I personally have not suffered this type of event, but I have my own experiences that have made me seek out FIRE. In 2008 I suffered a near death experience when someone side impacted the driver’s door of my vehicle – out for 3 months. As a result of this accident I lost my spleen. In 2014 my second daughter was born a micro premie at 24 weeks, two weeks into her birth she suffered asphyxiation, resulting in her having Cerebral Palsy. In 2016 I had an extremely stressful situation at work, which weakened my immune system, I suffered a seizure, contracted bacterial meningitis somehow, and went into a 4 day coma. The next 3-4 months I spent in recovery, and roughly a year after was fully recovered.
I feel for Mr. and Mrs. PIE. It sucks, it’s unfair, and sadly….it’s life. It can be beautiful and cruel all in one swing.
Life is short. And honestly…. I hate working. It does not bring me joy. It is a means to an end. I currently have a job that has “meaning and purpose” but I do not want to do it forever. What do I want then? To spend time with my family, watch my daughters grow, to see places I have never seen, experience things I’ve never experienced. Because one day, hopefully when I am a very very old man, it will end.
Excellent advice from Mrs. PIE and ESI as always.