u/BachelorPython

When I was contemplating early retirement in 2021, the one advice I received the most, online and offline, was that I should have a plan for my retired life. Basically…Don't just ‘retire from’ something, rather you must ‘retire to’ something.

I was confused by this advice for 3 reasons.

First, were these people so delusional that they believed themselves intelligent enough to give ME, the wisdom personified, unsolicited advice? The temerity…

Second, for me, the whole point of retirement was freedom from making plans. I had been making plans since I started going to school and I was sick of it. Making plans for post-retirement felt like holding Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in a bar. It defeats the very purpose.

And Third, how the hell are you supposed to know what to do in retirement BEFORE you retire? You don't even know who you are going to be. For 30+ years, the primary motivation for most of your actions was money, directly or indirectly. Remove that and you’re not merely changing your schedule… you’re changing yourself.

So, the ‘retired you’ is going to be a very different animal than your current version who is all about job titles, deadlines and performance reviews. It will be like trying to plan a menu for a complete stranger you have never met before. You can guess but odds are you'll get it wrong.

So, I retired in October 2021 without any plan for post-retirement life and today in April 2026, I still don't have any. All I do is cook, eat, sleep, read books, watch movies, listen to music, exercise and travel once in a while. And even after 4 years of this, I am not bored and I still don't feel the need to do anything which society would consider ‘productive’.

Now, though I wholeheartedly endorse not making any plans for your post-retirement while you are working, when it comes to staying idle during retirement… I would advise caution. Not everybody can manage that and, to be honest, not everybody should.

**The Do-ers**

Some people are psychologically wired to get higher dopamine from action, progress, results. These people feel most alive when they are building something or solving problems. It is also possible that a large part of their identity is tied to their work.

If you are such a person, you won't be able to sit still during retirement and you will have to find something to keep your mind occupied.

However, this is India and there is one more reason why some people may want to keep busy after retirement. And that is…

Societal opposition to idleness.

Right from their childhood, Indians are taught that the more productive you are, the more valuable you are. Sitting idle is looked upon as a sign of laziness and that's considered a moral failing. Which is why many Indians, even after achieving financial independence, think that ‘If I am not doing something productive, I am wasting my life’. And they keep themselves busy in activities which they hope would justify their existence to the society.

If you want to find out whether your desire to always keep on doing something is generated internally or driven by external pressure, honestly answer a simple question…

If no one you know can see what you are doing for the next one year, what will you do with your life?

**The Be-ers**

Now, some people derive pleasure from simple living, observing life and relationships. They are comfortable with stillness and are less comparison-driven. Their identity is not tied to productivity and external validation means little to them.

If you are such a person then you don't need to make any plans before or after retirement. You will figure it out as you go and it should be fine. And if anybody confidently tells you that ‘you will be bored within a few months’, you can respectfully request them to engage in sexual intercourse with themselves. Cause these people are blithely assuming that since they themselves will be bored in that situation, you would be too.

**Know Thyself**

Most people aren’t purely Do-ers or Be-ers… but they do tend to lean clearly in one direction. The mistake is assuming everyone should live the same way.

Benjamin Franklin had said, ‘Trouble springs from idleness’.

On the other hand, Blaise Pascal had said, ‘All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone’.

Both are right.

Which quote is applicable to you will depend on whether you are more of a Do-er or a Be-er. Find that out and you are one step closer to a retirement that actually works for you.

When it comes to the Retire Early part of FIRE, there is no consensus on what should be the outer limit for ‘Early’. And that makes sense. Different people have different responsibilities, temperament, expenses so the age at which they can Retire Early will obviously be different. So there cannot be a number by which every FIRE follower should retire.

Or can there?

Let me make the case for the age 45.

Unsolicited Gifts

Indian corporate jobs in Tier-1 cities offer you great salary and perks. But they also bundle a few things which you can do without

• Long hours

• High stress

• Poor sleep

• Erratic food habits

• ‘No time’ for fitness

And unlike salary, which appears instantaneously on 1st of every month, the effects of the above are not visible immediately. It's only when you zoom out 10 years or so, you can spot the damage.

And therein lies the danger.

The Compounding

People in this sub are big believers of the compounding effect. An SIP of a few thousands per month will not yield very impressive results at the end of the 1st year. But by the end of the 20th year, the compounding can take it to crores. A miracle!

But in the same vein, the effects of an unhealthy lifestyle also compound over the time. A little stress + junk food + no exercise from the age of 21 might not show any visible damage at 22. But by the time you are 40, the compounding effect can result in…

• High blood pressure

• Type 2 diabetes

• High cholesterol

• Obesity

• Chronic pain

• Heart disease

• Fatty liver

Not to mention anxiety and emotional exhaustion. If you are above 40, then there is a decent chance that you are suffering from at least 2 of the above.

Future is Already Here

Because as per doctors, the age of onset for many diseases has shifted almost a decade. Diseases like diabetes, hypertension, fatty liver are appearing in people in their 20s–30s which were rare a decade ago. In India, heart attacks are happening 10 -15 years earlier than the western countries with almost 25% of the heart attacks affecting men under 40.

Now the good news is that effects of the above are mostly reversible. The bad news is that the compounding effect can make them irreversible rather easily. Take chronic pain, for example. As long as it is due to muscle imbalance or inflammation, it can be reversed. But once it enters cartilage loss or nerve injury territory, invasive procedures like surgery becomes the only option.

And assuming you guys would like to spend your corpus on yourself and your loved ones rather than expensive medical treatments, giving your 100% to your health once you enter your 40s is axiomatic. Beyond 45, you’re not just earning more. You are also trading away recovery time.

Paradigm Shift

Some people may object that at 45, their corpus will not be enough. First of all, no one ever feels that they have enough money. And second, even if the corpus is objectively smaller, this early investment in your health will result in a more energetic old age with lower healthcare expenses. Sure, it's a trade-off. But then again, everything in life is.

Now it goes without saying that early retirement doesn't automatically lead to better health. But if you are spending your day without a hectic commute, stressful assignments and toxic colleagues, the chances of you sleeping fitfully, eating mindfully and exercising regularly dramatically improves.

Most Indians look at their corpus and no matter how big it is, say ‘Gotta do better’ and they look at their health and no matter how bad it is, say ‘It is what it is’. This dooms them in their old age. Maybe 45 is the age when you flip the script. At that time, you look at your corpus and say ‘It is what it is’ and when it comes to health, you make a vow, ‘Gotta do better’.

I recently went to my 25th year engineering college reunion and Yes, I was the prettiest one. You don't get brownie points for guessing the obvious. Anyways… I had a ball during the course of the reunion but I also ended up having serious conversations about finances with my batchmates. Here are my observations

**Early Retirement**

When I met my batchmates, ‘where are you working right now?’ was usually the second question from them right after ‘how are things?’. And when I replied that ‘I retired at 41’, I received blank stares. So out of curiosity, I asked them their view points on early retirement. Here is a sample of their responses

‘One should be gainfully employed for as long as possible’

‘What will we do with our time if we don't work?’

‘Early voluntary retirement means leaving a lot of money on the table. That's stupid’

Their views on retirement did not come as a surprise to me. After all, there is no dearth of ‘work forever’ people in our own FIRE subreddit. The surprise was their views on financial independence

**Financial Independence**

Most of them had no idea about their yearly expenses. A few of them told me that it is in the range of 10 to 15 lakhs but that felt more like guesswork than actual calculation. When I asked them ‘at what number would they consider themselves financially independent?’, they told me that it does not work that way for them. If they get more money, they will upgrade their lifestyle by buying a bigger house and getting a better car. Since the goal is continuous upward social mobility, there is no finish line. Expenses simply rise to meet income and FI as a concept becomes meaningless.

Another thing some of them confessed is that no amount feels safe enough with uncertainty surrounding their children's career. Engineering and medicine no longer guarantee stable careers and steady income as before; teachers, lawyers, architects etc start earning serious money way later in life and any other unconventional careers are, by nature, very risky. So my batchmates feel compelled to accumulate as much wealth as possible to support their kids even post 30, if necessary. This was new to me as I don't remember anybody in our subreddit sharing such concern.

What this reunion made me realise that even though many Indian professionals have vague dreams of early retirement, very few people are actually working towards financial independence with a structured approach. I guess the algorithm is so successful in confining us to a bubble where everybody is aware of saving rate, SWR, investment buckets etc. that we don't realise that FIRE is still a fringe idea in India.

Ironically, we WILL see a lot of ‘retired’ people in their 40s in the coming years but these will be the people who were laid off due to AI/Automation and could not find the next job. I don't see too many people voluntarily taking early retirement; may it be due to circumstances, mindset or simply social pressure. Not a judgement; simply an observation after 2 evenings of enlightening conversations