To get in the weeds a little, earlier this year, GOBankingRates released a survey showing that Americans' top fear is never being able to retire . And last week, The Washington Post published a bleak portrait of a group of Tulsa workers, all of whom are over 70 years old, have lost corporate pension benefits, and may have several more years of low-wage work ahead of them to make ends meet. For most people, retiring before age 66 (and change) is impractical, if not impossible, as full Social Security benefits don't kick in until then. So, retiring before age 60 as Jim Langford does? Being rich and successful before 30 (slash, at all) as Ellen becomes? That's a kind of porn I didn't know I could get from Netflix.