I have grade 11 and a certificate from a small business course that demonstrates if anything the only degrees that would matter to me, would be the ones my employees possessed.
My work history (that mattered) revolved around furniture. I have built by hand solo, and I have built it custom for a small business, I have made it enmass in a factory and I have refinished odds and ends. Spent most of my time though delivering schlock made to sell in large chain stores in my case for Leon's. My life has always been about making something in wood.
And then life told me to piss off and I was labeled disabled in 94 and poof that was the end of that.
So now, I am a retired parent in that my son is now 18 and an adult and I am now just a 'consultant' to him on life
My independent studies make me abnormally well educated, and without a shred of evidence to back it up.
But I'm 50 now, well past the usual time for starting off, and I live the life of a senior citizen.
What I do in my day, is mainly think of ways to fill it up.
Not easy.
My advice to those here below retirement. Plan for when you are 80, not 65. Because you won't really want to 'quit' until you are 80 and simply can't push yourself any further. 65 is still too young to condemn yourself to a life of too much effort to fill it up, when you could have just stayed at work hanging out with your daily mix of friends keeping busy.
It'd not about the cash at 65, it's about the boredom if you don't retire particularly rich.
Forget 'making way for the young', if they want your job, make them earn it.
