[run4yourlives]

I don't know anyone who's slaving away with the expectation of retiring to a permanent vacation.

No offence, this is probably because you are generation Y, well educated and surrounded by start-up mentality or in college.

Consider yourself lucky, but don't consider yourself the norm (yet at least).

[roc]

I never claimed my experiences were normal. I just questioned how widespread belief in the Boomers' retirement myth could be in the rest of the populace, if I'd never so much as met a believer. (I didn't mean to suggest Boomers who were 5 years out didn't believe or weren't still banking on the myth. I was talking about the younger generations.[1])

My circles do contain a disproportionate number of creatives and the self-employed/start-up types - but you're off by a generation. And maybe half have degrees; if that.

The biggest de-normative aspect is surely that my family/friends/colleagues are all in and around Detroit: where high unemployment and essentially no economic growth has been normal for a decade.

[1] You know the boomers sure complain a lot about the 'attitude of entitlement' among the younger generations. But who was it that actually mortgaged our future for their present?

[run4yourlives]

I'm not even going to attempt to argue anything in favour of the boomers. As a gen X that's against my DNA and I fear I may spontaneously combust if I entertain such thoughts.

The point is this however: the boomers are the norm. By literal definition. We (that's you and me both) are not, and we wont be for a while.