Back when I was 21, I was on the regimental staff at West Point. This “old” guy, a major—who  was about 36—said to us, “You are now them.” I answered, “Them?” He came back with, “You know, you’re now in charge. You’re now in a position of authority.” I didn’t like that. I liked being us. I didn’t like being them. Honestly, that was the first major life transition I remember where I thought, “This is not fun,” but, of course, I got through it and went on.

The other day I was looking up phobias and found that there’s a phobia for everything: wind, water, knees, snakes, and all sorts of other things. You name it, there’s probably a phobia associated with it. It’s just how we are as humans. As a society, we have a lot of various phobias. In fact, Transamerica released their 18th annual study in late 2018. It includes a retirement survey that explored the three greatest fears of those heading into retirement. The survey findings aren’t surprising:

You may not know it, but I lived in Alaska for three years. I absolutely loved it, even though it’s very cold. But now, there’s another reason to love Alaska. A recent article from Kiplinger lists the 10 most tax friendly states and guess which state got number one: Alaska. Even so, I’m not sure how many people would actually want to move there. The next two on the list are Wyoming and South Dakota. These are all cold places, so they’re not necessarily the best places to live out your retirement years. The article lists five states that are in what most people would consider the cold northern climes and five in warmer, southern climes. The five warmer states are Nevada, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, and Mississippi. But the actual point of the article isn’t about climate; it’s to bring up things to consider—such as tax friendly status—if you end up moving to one of these places, especially during retirement.

Remember the 1981 comedy movie, The History of the World – Part I, starring Mel Brooks? In it, Brooks plays Moses and in one scene we see him coming down from Mount Sinai with three stone tablets. He then says something like, “God has given us these 15…” [He loses grip on one tablet and it smashes and breaks] “Oy, 10 commandments for all of us to obey.”