Saving for Retirement with Glioma

Liz, the young 32 years-old inspiring leader of The Liz Army (check Survival Stories to learn more about her), asked a question that is so relevant not only to us living with a gun pointed to our heads but to everyone that saves money for retirement: should we or should we not save money for retirement?
In fact by total coincidence when Liz asked the question I was having the same discussion with my wife.
In my opinion every responsible person that has enough to do so should save money for a rainy day, which can come in the form of a health issue, a job loss or other bad things. On the other hand savings can open new opportunities, such as making the trips of your dreams, building the house of your dreams etc.
However saving for retirement to me today is an obsolete concept. In a day and age when people that are 75 years-old finish Ironman races, run Marathons, run large corporations etc. I wonder what is retirement good for when you can be productive your entire life.
Obviously age brings its effects, such as gray hair, wrinkles, lost mobility, eyesight, strength etc. However saving for a day when you can finally do nothing does not make a lot of sense to me. Why defer your dream for 30 years when you can chase your dreams today?
I had an uncle that worked like a dog his whole life and had very tough ups and downs, from being arrested and tortured during the Brazilian military Government because he was a "communist" when he was just a student leader chasing new ideas. Once he begun working he eppitomized capitalism. Working for an energy company he made his way from rags to riches, but when he finally decided to do more of what he liked (i.e. travelling) by retiring, it was too late. He was diagosed right after retirement with lung cancer and is now watching us from Heaven. He accomplished a lot professionaly and personaly, raising my cousins who are both great guys, made a trip to China to see communism in action and made a lot of people around him better people with his great heart. Nonetheless he enjoyed only a small portion of the fruits of his labor.
On the other hand you have people like my dad, who doesn't save for retirement and says that he is going to work until the last day of his life. My dad loves what he does and it always feels like a day away from work to him is a day wasted.
There are two phrases that summarize what I think about this topic:
- Find a job you love and you won't have to work for the rest of your life
- Life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans (this one comes from John Lennon, I just learned this one from Kotler's book Winning at Innovation)
In the field of economics there is a concept called "utility", which in essence is an equivalent to money except that it doesn't have a value. What to me is worth 100 bucks might be worth as little as 5 or as much as 1,000 bucks to someone else. Instead of calling this money "bucks" a teacher I had called it "utils".
If knowing that having a safety cushion brings you more utility that investing in your dream trip today save enough to bring you peace of mind before you make your trip. If you realized that saving for when you turn 80 doesn't make a lot of sense either go ahead and make your trip!
I hope this helps everyone that wonders if they should save for retirement. From a strictly financial stand-point saving for retirement makes the most sense as the Government provides tax incentives for those that save money in retirement accounts, but if you are saving but deferring your dream strictly for tax gain purposes I would reconsider the decision. Money is a means, not an end, but a lot of times it can be an end and might lead us down a wrong path.
I just finished watching Margin Call, a good depiction of the mortgage backed securities market melt down. In a way the movie helps illustrate how a bank, supposed to transfer money from those that have too much and don't have anything productive to do with it, to those that need it and want to produce something with it, of course at a cost, all of a sudden turned into a big gambler through leverage. This has lead solid century-old institutions to disappear in a blink of an eye because instead of being a good resource allocator the bank became a blind money chaser, investing in securities they barely understood.
Think about what moves you, and if saving is a requirement to do what moves you, save it now. But don't differ your dreams as life expires and we have to live it while it lasts.
But remember that you might have decades after tomorrow, so be careful with living as if there is no tomorrow because I really hope we all have thousands of tomorrows!