First, watch this video: it’s Isabel Allende on how to live passionately.

Towards the end of her talk, Isabel tells us that in Spanish, “retirement” is “jubilación”: JUBILATION.  First of all, this is a beautiful way to view retirement.  But second, the question I would ask is this: why wait?  Why wait until retirement for jubilation, when we could start living it right now?

Quitting your job is an event, and one which has the prerequisite of having accumulated a certain amount of money.  But retirement–especially retirement qua jubilation–isn’t an event: it’s a state of mind, and therefore has no prerequisites.  I, for one, have no intention of waiting around until a certain age to start living jubilantly.  I’m starting today, and I invite you to join me.