A colleague retires and everyone hears the number. A neighbour mentions, almost in passing, that they’re “all sorted.” Your own parents managed it their own way, and some part of you still measures against that. And then there are the retirement living surveys, the ones that tell the nation what a “minimum,” “moderate” or “comfortable” retirement costs, as though everyone’s life fits neatly into one of three brackets.
None of it is malicious. Most of it isn’t even meant as pressure. But it adds up to a quiet, constant hum of comparison, and comparison, as the saying goes, is the thief of joy. Comparing retirement savings against a friend’s number, a colleague’s decision or a survey average is exactly where it shows up hardest, because retirement planning is often all people have got to go on. No one hands you a rulebook for this stage of life, so we borrow one from whoever seems to be doing it best.
Comparison, as the saying goes, is the thief of joy
The pin map, again
There’s a large wooden map on our wall at home, dotted with pins for the places Hazel and I have been. Visitors often clock the same thing: some very well-trodden parts of Europe barely have a mark on them. We’ve never really done the fortnight in the usual spot. Instead, there’s Antarctica, Alaska, Borneo, a scatter of stops from an American road trip, and Hawaii, which we keep going back to simply because it’s ours, not because a guidebook told us to.
Some of that map is empty on purpose. Empty doesn’t mean behind. It just means we were headed somewhere else.
Empty doesn’t mean behind. It just means we were headed somewhere else.
“What’s everyone else doing?”
I hear a version of this in nearly every first conversation. What should my number be? What are other people my age doing? Is what I’ve got normal? All fair questions, and I understand exactly why they get asked. But underneath them is usually a different, harder question: what do I actually want this next chapter to look like?
That’s the one worth answering first, the same question this series opened with in The two-week holiday that lasts thirty years. A number borrowed from someone else’s plan will never quite fit your life, however tidy it looks on their spreadsheet.
It’s not just the number you borrow
Here’s the part that catches people out. It’s rarely just the figure that gets copied. It’s the whole itinerary. The age they’re stopping. The lifestyle they’ve pictured. The definition of “enough” that quietly becomes yours, without you ever sitting down and choosing it for yourself.
It’s rarely just the figure that gets copied. It’s the whole itinerary.
I see the same thing constantly in travel. Ask most people for a recommendation, and they’ll tell you where they went and loved, enthusiastically, generously, and almost never think to ask first what you’re actually looking for. Someone after a quiet week gets sent somewhere built for adventure. Someone chasing culture gets pointed at a beach resort. It isn’t bad advice, exactly. It’s just their trip, handed to you as though it were yours.
Retirement conversations run on the same fuel. Well-meaning people offer their route because it’s the only one they know. The trouble starts when you take it without ever checking whether it was meant for you.
Agree or disagree, then what?
Here’s a question worth asking yourself next time a number or a recommendation lands in your lap, whether it’s a friend’s plan, a survey headline, or a colleague’s decision.
Do you agree with it, or not? And either way, what do you actually do next?
Most people do neither. They file it away, half believed, and carry on. The comparison sits there quietly, doing nothing except making them feel slightly behind or slightly reassured, but never actually moving them forward.
The more useful response, whichever way you land, is to turn it into a question you can answer for yourself.
Not “is £30,000 enough,” but “is £30,000 enough for the life I want?”
Not “they’re retiring at 60,” but “what would need to be true for me to retire at 60?”
Some people are entirely capable of chasing those answers down on their own, and do it well. Others get there faster with someone who already knows where to look. Both are perfectly good approaches.
What doesn’t help is a number sitting unexamined at the back of your mind, quietly shaping decisions you never consciously made.
A number left unexamined quietly shapes decisions you never consciously made
Learn from fellow travellers. Don’t borrow their destination.
The people around you, friends, colleagues, even your own parents, are a genuinely useful source of information. Their experience, their mistakes, the things they wish they’d known sooner: all of it is worth hearing. That’s learning from a fellow traveller, and it’s valuable.
What isn’t valuable is taking their destination and calling it your own. Their version of enough, their pace, their picture of a good retirement, was built for their life, not yours.
Your map, not theirs
So before the practical planning starts, before the numbers, the timing, the income decisions we’ll come to over the coming months, there’s a quieter question worth sitting with first.
Not the holiday version. The real one. Pick one number or decision you’ve quietly borrowed, a friend’s plan, a survey average, a parent’s approach, and turn it into a question that’s actually yours.
Not “is this enough,” but “is this enough for the life I want?”
That’s where your own map starts.
If any of that stirred more questions than answers, that’s worth a conversation. I’m here when you’re ready.
Paul
