You’re most likely saying to yourself, “Is this guy serious?” Well yes I am serious; I know it sounds outrageous, but not only is it possible, it is important that our generation aim for forty five as the self-imposed retirement age.

When my parents’ generation was my age, the normal life was to start kindergarten at age 4, primary school at 6, Junior High school at 12, Senior High school at 15, Tertiary education at 19, start their first job at 23, work for 35 years, retire at 65 and die at 70 or, if they’re fortunate, have a bonus of 10 years to end it all at 80.

My parents’ generation is much different from ours though; when my mother was twenty nine, her brother lived in Germany. Their main means of communication was through letters; when my mama sent a letter, my uncle received it two weeks later. He then replied, and my mum would receive it in another two weeks. A simple two way communication took one month.

Our generation is different; we have emails which take micro seconds to reach its destination, we have Facebook, Twitter, Skype and other internet applications at our disposal, and we haven’t even mentioned cell phones. We are citizens of the global world. We have free access to more information in one day than our mothers had in a whole year when they were our age. What does this have to do with retiring at forty five?

Our world is a hundred times faster and with hundreds more opportunities than our parents’ generation. We have the ability to generate more income in five years than our parents could in ten years. With the internet alone, we have access to global markets and no physical borders to stop us. With proper planning, savings and investment, we should be able to take half the time it took our parents to earn as much as they did to be able to retire.

With the resources at our disposal, our generation can retire at the age of forty five if we really want to.

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