I started writing the 100 lessons I have learnt in life so far. This is the Lesson number 4. click here to read lesson number 3

Most likely you may be saying ‘is this guy serious?’ well yes I am serious, I know it sounds outrageous but not only is it possible but it is more important that our generation aim for forty five as the self-imposed retirement age.

When my parent’s generation was my age, the normal life was to start kindergarten at age 4, primary school are 6, Junior High school at 12, Senior High school at 15, Tertiary education at 19, start their first job at 23, work for 35 years and retire at 65 and die at 70 or if fortunate have a bonus of 10 years to end it all at 80.

My parent’s generation is much different from mine, when my mother was twenty nine she had her brother in Germany. Their main means of communication was through letters, when my mama sent a letter, my uncle receives it two weeks later, he then replies and my mum receives it in another two weeks. A simple two way communication took one month.

My generation is different, I have emails which take micro seconds to reach its destination, I have Facebook, Twitter, Skype and the other internet applications and I haven’t even started with cell phones. I am a citizen of the global world. I have free access to more information in one day than my mother had in a whole year when she was my age. What does this have to do with retiring at forty five?

Our world is hundred times faster and with hundreds of opportunities than my parent’s generation. We have the ability to generate more income in five years than our parents could in ten years. With proper planning, savings and investment, we should be able to take half the time it took our parents to earn as much as they did to be able to retire.
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Originally posted 2010-06-28 17:20:51.

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