TAKE ADVANTAGE OF YOUR GO-GO YEARS

Derek Hagen
2 minutes ago
3 min read

Hand-drawn three-circle Venn diagram of money, time, and health, with overlaps labeled old age, middle age, youth, and go-go years.

❝It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.❞ -Seneca

The window when you have money, time, and health is smaller than you think.

Most people worry about running out of money. Fewer worry about running out of time. Fewer still think about running out of health.

But these are all resources, and we're running out of all three simultaneously, just at different rates.

YOUR RESOURCES: TIME, HEALTH, AND MONEY

Money is the resource most people think about first. We save it, invest it, and plan around it. But all the money in the world won't help if there's no time left to enjoy it.

Time is the second resource and unlike money, you can't earn more of it. Every day that passes is gone permanently.

The third resource is health: physical health, cognitive health, and energy. All the money and time in the world won't help if you're physically or cognitively unable to use them.

Of these three, we usually only get to have two at once.

Hand-drawn diagram titled "Your Resources" showing three separate, non-overlapping circles labeled money, time, and health.

YOUR RESOURCES ACROSS TIME

When we're young, we have time and health, but most of us haven't started earning much yet. We can do almost anything physically. And we have the freedom to act on it whenever we want, like a free weekend, a spontaneous trip, or something unplanned. We just don't have the money to fund it.

Hand-drawn three-circle Venn diagram of money, time, and health with only the time-and-health overlap shaded blue, labeled youth.

By middle age, most of us have built careers and started accumulating savings. We have money, and we still have our health. But the hours are spoken for with demanding jobs, growing families, and other obligations. We could afford the trip. We just can't find the time to take it.

Hand-drawn three-circle Venn diagram of money, time, and health with only the money-and-health overlap shaded blue, labeled middle age.

By our senior years, we've often built significant assets, and once we've retired, we have time again. But this is also when health starts to decline. Physical and cognitive abilities gradually narrow. We have money and time, but health is slipping.

Hand-drawn three-circle Venn diagram of money, time, and health with only the money-and-time overlap shaded blue, labeled old age.

It appears as though we will always be deficient in one resource... except for one window.

The Meaning in Life Questionnaire assesses two dimensions of meaning in life, the presence of and search for meaning. Presence measures how full you feel your life is of meaning. Search measures how engaged and motivated you are in efforts to find meaning in your life.

THE GOLDEN WINDOW

Right after retirement, there's a brief moment when all three align.

The nest egg is intact, and we have money. We've just left work so we have time. And it's early enough in retirement that we still have our health. In retirement planning, this is called the go-go years. It's the intersection of all three.

This is the Golden Window.

Hand-drawn three-circle Venn diagram of money, time, and health with the center intersection shaded gold, labeled go-go years.

It doesn't last forever. Health starts to decline. The slow-go years arrive. Eventually the window closes. Which is exactly why it matters to recognize when it's open.

THIS IS WHAT THE MONEY IS FOR

Most people underspend in their go-go years.

It makes sense because a lifetime of accumulation doesn't switch off automatically. The instinct to hold onto what you've built is strong. But staying in accumulation mode during the Golden Window means deferring experiences until health has declined, or until the people you wanted to share them with are no longer able to.

The money was never the point. It was always a tool... a means to fund the life you wanted to live. The go-go years are when you have everything you need to actually live it.

This is the window. Spend accordingly.

You get one life; live intentionally.

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