The Problem is Not That You’ll Outlive Your Savings
The problem is you probably won’t
If you’re traditional retirement age, you’re old enough to remember this scene from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Butch (Paul Newman) and The Sundance Kid (Robert Redford) are standing at the edge of a cliff as the posse that’s pursuing them closes in. They’re outnumbered; there’s no chance they can fight their way out of the predicament. Their only possible chance for survival is to jump into the river below.
Butch sees this as the perfect solution. He’s ready to go. “If the river is deep enough and we don’t get squished to death, they’ll never follow us,” he reasons.
But The Kid hangs back. He’d rather jump into a fray with the posse than into the river, even against impossible odds. “I want to fight em,’” he says.
The dialog goes back and forth for a minute (you can read the whole scene here) until Butch demands to know what’s behind The Kid’s unreasonable resistance to jumping.
“I can’t swim,” The Kid admits.
Butch bursts into laughter. “Are you crazy?” he demands. “The fall will probably kill ya.”
This puts things in perspective for The Kid and the duo runs to the cliff edge and jumps.
