Life Span, Health Span, Wealth Span: A More Expansive Approach To Retirement Planning

Until recently, I’ve never been enamored with the notion of living a longer-than-average lifespan. Perhaps this is because my primary observation was that old age didn’t look all that appealing. I’d observed grandparents, great aunts and uncles, and aged family friends face a seemingly hyperbolic hill of discomfort, disease, and, ultimately, death.

Sure, I wanted to live long enough to have grandchildren, enjoy some benchmark anniversaries with my spouse, have a measurable positive impact in my career and community, and check off a host of bucket-list boxes, but the notion of living, say, until 100 wasn’t a goal. Two things happened, then, that changed my mind: