How Much is Enough?

“If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free. If our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed.”   – Edmund Burke

How much is enough, of what? Implied is the answer money and even more so in the context of this conversation about retirement funds. If you type in this question into google thousands of answers pop up in the form of retirement calculators and the ideology behind each of them. Different philosophies abound attempting to predict how much money is required to live out a period of retirement. Underneath all of these tools are a set of assumptions, guesses really. How long will you live? How much money did you earn prior to retirement? How much money do you plan on spending? On and on it goes. 

But thinking about this idea of ‘enough’ more generally might be a better place to start. Because if you don’t know what ‘enough’ means outside of money, how can you predict how much money will be required to finance ‘enough’? Digging into the idea of ‘enough’ becomes the whole point, really. We are pretty quick to name a number of corporate world constraints that we have had more than ‘enough’ of. What then, is the counterbalance? When ‘enough’ is something we want to get rid of, what replaces it? That is the real question for me.

I’ve given this idea of, “what replaces”, the daily activities I’m leaving behind from working full time corporate a lot of thought. My list of preferred activities, entertainments, hobbies, etc. is extremely long. Choices will have to be made. Not only will I not have enough money to fund everything on my list, I won’t have the time or energy either. My curiosity is much greater than my ability or desire to follow every train of thought I come up with. In retirement, I get to decide if a new idea fits into my life. I won’t have to refuse the newness out of hand due to corporate work commitments taking up most of my time and available energy. 

This all sounds good. I’ve got more than enough to fill my time and energy levels. I can just go down the list, or walk through my studio full of projects, to pick and choose on a whim. That has been my guiding thought, the freedom to choose whatever I want, whenever I want. This has been intoxicatingly exciting to think about, to fantasize about when my corporate job really gets me down. Or have I crossed over from ‘enough’ to too much? Perhaps.

One of the ways I have been successful at corporate work has been my ability to set priorities and go after what is most important. I’m able to stay on task, no matter that it was not my personal favourite thing to do or even what I would have done if I could have set the priorities free from others opinions. I can separate my wants and desires from what I am essentially being compelled to do by others. Sure, I have some autonomy, but in essence I have more pre-selected and limited choices. This is a structure I have managed to do OK in. What happens when I don’t have this framework anymore?

Frameworks get built by ordinary people. For example, executive leaders will step away from the business and strategize with each other about the future, even hiring consultants to assist. They brainstorm and discuss the pros and cons of taking various actions in the months and years to come. Once all this has been hashed out, they tell everyone else in the company what the company priorities will be for the next period of time. I’m not making this up, in some companies I have been part of this process. How can we take this kind of idea and apply it to our personal lives?

When I was growing up, still a teenager, my parents decided to teach us 3 kids how to set personal goals. During the Christmas holidays we would sit together on the chosen afternoon and go around the room, each taking a turn to present our goals for the future. Some questions would be asked, perhaps some suggestions offered and then the next person would have the floor. This went on for a number of years until I moved away. I tried to continue this practice with roommates and then my husband, with varying degrees of success. What I learned in those years is that my husband’s brain does not work this way. He finds my process of setting goals stressful and therefore unproductive. Does that mean goal setting goes out the window at our house?

As I look towards retirement, one resource I have found is the work of Dr. Jordan Grumet. As a hospice doctor with a unique front-row seat to the regrets of his dying patients, Grumet has written and given talks about how to discover what is most important in life. From reading and listening to Jordan and others, I’ve learned that I don’t need any external validation or joint working sessions with my husband to discover what I value most in my life. In fact, the process of digging into my heart’s desire has been some of the most rewarding time I have spent with myself in relation to goal setting. This work is not done, but I am starting to see what my personal framework looks like and that feels great!

There is not one quest for ‘enough’, at least I don’t think so. For sure, once I am done with corporate work I will have had ‘enough’ of that particular way of spending my time. But in terms of accumulating money, what I’ve managed to accomplish is ‘enough’. The only thing left to do is brainstorm all they ways I can rejoice in spending time and energy because most of what is meaningful to me costs little to no money. This has been my truth during the ‘saving’ phase of my life and will be true again in the ‘spending’ years.

The cause of concern in my life has always been when I look to others and covet what they have. Many times, I have fallen into the trap of trying to keep up with those who have a nicer house or drive nicer cars. At work my Achilles heel was wanting a bigger job and salary to go with it. During these periods of striving for more, I was also experiencing my deepest unhappiness. I mistakenly thought that my feelings were tied to what I was lacking and when I achieved the next milestone I would be happy and content. 

At some point in my late forties I started to realize the quest for more would never be over, there was always something or someone ahead of me. When I took stock and looked back at everything I had accomplished over my career, it became clear that those events were not usually linked to my happiest moments. In fact, accomplishments and happiness were not even on the same playing field – they didn’t coexist and were not dependent on each other. This is when I knew retirement from corporate was next for me.

How much is ‘enough’ then? When looking at the question beyond the context of money, I’ve always had enough. I grew up in privilege and my needs were always met. I’ve always provided ‘enough’ for myself and along with my husband, for our family. The trick now is to appreciate how much I have. If my going in premise to retirement is to skillfully navigate the myriad of choice and keep myself grounded to my values, I will fully enjoy the ride. Yes, there will be goals, yes there will be moments of longing, but the vast majority of my time will be spent doing just as I want, with whom I want, when I want and where I want. That is enough for me.