Today, the topic of retirement came up. Mostly we listened to Dave talk about how much money he and his wife need to save up before he can spend money with his wife's blessings. The number they came up with is $2 million, I think, which is a fair amount and enough such that you can retire on the interest. Maybe it was $3 million, since Pickering's goal is $2.6 million and he's single.

That kind of talk gets me to thinking about what my financial goals should be. If for some reason I should live to be fairly old, but not even then. I already have some $400+k, almost all in stocks so it's really paper money. But assuming that I should somehow be able to save more, invest in even a normal fashion, which is about 15% to 20% increase a year in the stock market. Whether or not our stock boom can be sustained or even if it crashes a bit. Regardless, I can probably get a couple of million in twenty years and retire at 50, at worst.

One thing that has always bothered me (other than the pain in my right middle finger as I type, I should take a break), is what I would do if I ever had a lot of money. What if I won the lottery and didn't have to work anymore? Would I quit my job and lead a life of leisure? I would like to think that I wouldn't, that I would keep working, give away my money to my family and/or some worthy causes, spend some but not that much. But I don't think I have that kind of willpower, and that make me sad. For I sincerely believe that I would change and become the kind of person that I've spent my whole life running away from. The kind of uncaring, self-indulgent, hedonistic sort who I know lies not buried deep enough in my soul.

Anyway, one of the things that scares me is that without work that carefully and precariously built house of cards that I call my life would just fall apart. Work takes up so much time and such a large part of my life, that it allows me to focus my offtime on the things that I really want to do. Take now as an example. I have a mountain of things to do at work, cutting back on my goofing off, which is primarily reading. That reading pushes a little into my offtime, where I've taken on watching a couple more shows, meaning that my daily video tapings take me a good four or five hours to view. So I work until 21:00, get home at 22:00, eat, watch television, read, internet all at the same time until 03:00; go to sleep, wake up and get to work by 13:30 or so.

There's no time to start the kind of projects that I won't be able to maintain over the long haul. Anytime that my work load falls off for a couple of weeks, especially during reruns so there's not much for me to watch on television. That's when I start the kind of things that, although I want to do, are not pressing enough for me to prioratize them. Projects like wargames, or developing a program, working on my network, creating a campaign, improving my web site, writing more stories, starting a journal. Things that I won't get done because they're not important enough for me to really work on them with a fervered enthusiasm; and that will have to be dropped half-done as the work schedule ramps up back to normal.

My real concern is that I don't have the discipline to really make something of myself if for some reason I didn't have a regular job sucking major portions of my time. What would really happen, as what happened when I was laid up for a couple of weeks after Thanksgiving, is that I would just watch more television, play more games, but not get anything constructive done. Too much time would be a curse for me, I think I need the lack of time, which focuses me on getting my personal stuff done before they build up to overwhelm me. And the reason that works is because I need the money that a job provides, that I also like the job is a bonus.

So assuming I happen to save up a huge amount of money, would I retire early? Well, the answer to that once again falls on my old standby: I don't expect, don't think, and perhaps I hope, that I won't live to the age where that happens. Maybe deep down inside I'm afraid of being old more than being dead.