When do you plan to retire?
At 50, 64, 73, or at 102 (if you are still alive by then)?
At what age do you want to hang your shoes and say quits?

Will you base it on the number of years in the company that you are working in and maxed out on the company’s distribution for your retirement plan?

Or hand over your business to your children and buy a beach property somewhere so you can swim and surf all day and all night long.
In that way, you can retire early and live the life you always wanted.

When is the best time really?
Is there a number of years that we can follow? When is the ideal time?

When I was in my 30’s, I was targeting to retire at the age of 50.
I then realize that I have 2 sons who will be going to college. So then I adjusted my retirement plan when I reach 60.
At that age, my children will be independently living on their own and financially wise to the world that we live in.
Me and wife then can use the rest of our savings and investment for our retirement.
Sound like a good plan right?
60 is not that old and you can still do triathlon and maybe travel the world.

That was before I met Manong Mais. I call him Manong Mais (Corn) because he always sells sweet corn in front of St. John Bosco Parish Church in Makati every Sunday.
Manong Mais is over 70 years of age, and if you take a closer look at our picture, you will see that he has wrinkles for the most part of his face.
He is wearing dentures and due for cataract surgery. He is old and weak. He is supposed to be at home relaxing.
What on earth is he doing on the street pulling and pushing his vendor cart that weighs more than 100 kilos?

So I took my curiosity out on him. Although I am full and stuffed from the buffet dinner that me and my family had in a nearby mall, I pulled out my wallet and bought Manong’s sweet corn so that I have a valid reason to stay and communicate with the old man.
Being the talkative person that I am, I asked a lot of “Probing Questions” to get the feel and have a deeper perspective on the old man’s choice of doing manual labor.

I asked him this… “Why do you have to work at your age when you should be resting”?
He answered back by saying… “I can’t stop working if I do I will trickle little by little and die”.

I got the sentiment that this Mais vendor is not working for money alone, but instead for a reason to keep him busy therefore not making his life idle.
“Through sloth the roof sinks in, and through indolence the house leaks” -Ecclesiastes 10:18

No wonder farmers in the province are still working and very much healthy at the age of 80 or 90.
While people in the city succumb to different types of illness even at the early age of 40. We are like machines. We are made and programmed to use our mind and body until our battery dies out.
We don’t see in the manual that we should retire at 60 or even 70.

Mang Mais has a point. We should never allow ourselves to be idle.
We should keep our engines running and even lubricate them (with knowledge and skills) as much as possible.

We went to Don Bosco church to hear mass and digested Sunday’s gospel. We never expected that we will be receiving more insights from that particular night.
Me and family acquired a lot from the old Mais cart vendor.
Not only did he gave us his best selling Juicy Sweet Corn, he also gave us the best Juicy Advice about the thing we called Life.