Financial Independence Retire Early (FIRE) May Help Us Rethink Our Definition of Work

It’s too late for me to retire early. I already qualify for senior citizen discounts, But I found myself drawn towards listening to a podcast (New York Times The Daily) about FIRE, the acronym that stands for the Financial Independence Retire Early Movement.   

The premise is that if one adopts an approach to planning and aggressively saving, it is possible for an individual to retire at age fifty, forty-five, thirty-five, even as young as twenty-five. A very busy thread on Reddit generates lots of conversation.

A winning lottery ticket, drastic frugality, or a little bit of both can make retiring early possible. Spend less by bartering, buying second hand, saving as much as fifty percent of your paycheck and savings grow. But retiring from what one may ask.  Suppose one never went to “work” in the first place.

What I find interesting about the FIRE movement is the emphasis on anti-consumerism and a desire to define oneself outside of the workforce.

In Western Culture, we tend to judge people by the work they do. Age, gender, profession are easy identifiers that tend to generate stereotypes. If and when you ask what a person does for a living. and as soon as they say—truck driver, or lawyer, or math teacher—already you may be formulating an idea of who they are in your mind. Your idea, based on tropes and previous individuals you’ve met, may be inaccurate. But you’ve placed them in a category.

I remember one of my first jobs after college was “Field Secretary” at a Girl Scouts Council. I have no idea if such a job title still exists. The advent of computers has enabled the post of secretary, someone who takes notes, edits, types and files, to become, in many companies, obsolete. I recall often revising, editing and reorganizing my superior’s work while typing it, but my title was still secretary not editor. If I met someone at a party and told them what I did for work, I immediately sensed they thought me lacking in intellect.

If I managed to add my aspirations, writer who is currently studying ballet and trying to get a short story published, maybe they’d think I had a little more going on in my head. But why should I have to do that?

And suppose I answered retired. The next question might be retired from what?

Why do we have to pigeon hole people? There are all sorts of ways to describe an individual that has nothing to do with how they pay their bills.  They may a serious person who notices things you never thought of before or a funny person who makes you laugh.

The FIRE movement invites us to think about ourselves differently. Because if you are forty years old and living a life that has nothing to do with punching in a time clock and collecting a paycheck, someone who spends their time inventing a new language or picking up trash in public parks, “retired” might not be the correct word.

Removed from the world and living a leisurely life or taking the time to do what you want to do? Retirement is how you define it.

WRITING PROMPT: Write a scene describing someone’s hidden life. They may be a secret superhero who by day pretends to be a mild mannered “Clark Kent” or a brilliant scientist taking the job of lab assistant (Elizabeth Zott in Lessons in Chemistry) The idea of double identities and secrets provides plenty of conflict and intrigue. Your scene can be humorous or sad. Try different slants and angles by writing the same scene focusing both primary characters and observers using first and third person viewpoints. This is a prompt, if expanded, that will likely generate an entertaining story or poignant memoir. Have fun with it.

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