How to Retire Without Money
WHY YOU SHOULD CONSIDER RETIREMENT (page 3)
This book is devoted to those who rebel against being a Sam or Lois Lucky or a Jim or Sally Average. It's devoted to the man or woman of whatever age, from 21 and up, who has no money but does have a burning desire to get off the modern treadmill.Or it's devoted to the man, woman, or family having a small income and a desire to retire but a feeling they have insufficient funds with which to do it.
It's devoted to the person who wishes to see life. Who wants to travel. Who wants the stimulating experiences to be found in a free way of existence.
It's devoted to he who would relax, go fishing, go hunting, go hiking, swimming, sailing, mountain climbing. Who would enjoy life's pleasures while still young enough to enjoy them in full.
Above all it's devoted to that person, man or woman, aged 21 or aged 71 who wishes to spend the balance of his life profitably. And when I say profitably I mean by following a heart felt desire to practice an art, or to pursue a study, or to ride a hobby.
It is not devoted to that person who wakes up in the morning and goes down to a hurried breakfast and then to work. At work he spends eight hours or so, with a short lunch period during which he again bolts his food so as to get back to the job again on time. In the evening he comes home to a dinner, hurriedly prepared by a wife who either works or whose time is so taken up with the children and household duties that she too is exhausted at day's end. After dinner he sits for an hour or two watching television or perhaps going to the local bar or movie. In the morning, the same routine again. By week's end there is a day and a half or two days for relaxation, so that work can be resumed at top efficiency on Monday. For two or three weeks each year the family can pile into the car and dash off on a hurried tour of some national park, or an attempt at rest in some mountain or beach resort. Then back to the grind again. Year in, year out, and the best that can be hoped for is occasional raises in pay—and that a depression or lay off will not come to steal one's livelihood.
I repeat, this book is not for the person who will exist in such a way of life. If any reader has got this far and still subscribes to such an existence, I say right now that he might as well read no further. He will never see eye to eye with me and is wasting his time. If this sort of existence is supposed to be the American Dream, I say it is not a dream but a nightmare.
And to him who complains that what I say is against the American way of life, that our people must live in this manner and that it is the best way of life. That we owe a duty to our fellow man, or our country, or the world in which we live to live such an existence. To him I pound on the table top and shout that it is not so.
The greatest men that the world has ever produced did not, could not, live such a life. No great scientific discovery, no great work of art, no great book, ever came from a man or woman who remained in such a rut...
Man makes his great discoveries; he leads a good and full life; he enjoys and gives enjoyment; only when he has leisure and the opportunity to develop himself.
Lord Byron, Shelley and Keats were great poets. But they never would have written verse had they spent their lives in the textile mills of Manchester.
From Phidias to Picasso there has never been a great artist except those who had freedom to pursue their art, who had the ability to escape, by whatever means, from the drudgery of life which besets ninety-nine out of a hundred of us. The great inventions, the great scientific discoveries of our world have been made by men who were able to pursue their driving interests in freedom from an eight hour day or more devoted to drudgery.
What musical composer could have worked in his off hours, after a grueling day on a meaningless treadmill? What philosopher could have spun his theories after sitting at a desk working in an advertising agency trying to make people buy things they didn't really want with money they didn't really have?
But we need not be poets, writers, painters, scientists or philosophers to want and need a life free of drudgery and worry. No man can enjoy the potentials nature has awarded him without freedom from the pressure of modern existence. He must escape, he must free himself from the rut in which most are sunk, he must get off the treadmill.