Retirement: When is the right age?

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In a recent discussion, I was asked, what do I think is the right age for "Retirement?" My answer? I don't know! There is, it seems, more than one answer to this question. To some, it seems right to follow the trend, and to retire at a specific age. In most cases, it's left up to the company they work for. In other instances an age limit is set; it's either, at age fifty-fife, or sixty, or sixty-five (if strong enough)And if very strong,even seventy. But what is the motivating factor in each of these cases? My question: how many years do you have left to enjoy your pension, before you depart to 'permanent retirement' lying horizontal in a wooden box, clasping a lily in your hands? Well, I concede that I don't have all the answers. Because it all depends on planning forward. And the more time you have available in your forward planning, the better chance you have of retiring financially more secure. I dont mean you must take your time to plan. I mean you must have enough time left to the age at which you want to retire. Some might say: That's well enough, but how many years will I have left, to enjoy that hard-earned capital. Well it's all determined by fate; how long is your life-line? You dont know! My opinion: Plan anyway, and let everything else come along of it's own accord - I mean those things over which you and I have no controll. Who knows, you might also live too long. So than you wont be sorry. And if you don't live long enough? Well, if you're dead, you'll be too dead to worry, anyway. Planning is participating in your own future; whether that future is too short, or too long, or just right, you must still plan. If you 'fail to plan;' 'you plan to fail.' So, I consider, there is a time for everything under the sun. A time to live and a time to die. And right in between that is a time to act, which is: Planning your life and your future, and leave the end to the One in whose hands is the beginning and the end.