Retirement is in some ways an outmoded concept. When you worked forty-five years at the factory or manufacturing plant, you'd had enough and went home to do very little. It was a relief not to do mind-number work and be on your feet all day, and you relax and enjoy your pension and grandkids. Today's work is different because many who can afford to retire (people with pensions, usually professionals) enjoyed their professions. Why retire? Why not work part-time, or as a consultant, or find another type of work? If you can do it, why not? Also--we have a strange "put out to pasture" view of retirement, as if working is what defines us. But that's an individual perspective. For some people it does. For me, I'm happy to never work again...as soon as I can afford it.