Couple things I agree with in particular. Life is short (at least, too short to sit around in an office by yourself for the majority of it), and if you want to retire &/or do other things, make a plan. Sit down with someone who is not a financial idiot (as virtually all physicians are -- it's why we did medicine and not business, finance, etc.) and look realistically at what you have, what you want, when you want it, and how to make it happen. I totally agree that too many folks hit the real world and it's like college all over again -- MONEY/FREEDOM AT LAST, TIME TO SPLURGE! And they buy a new car, house, etc. while paying the minimum or barely more on all of those plus school loans, and in less than a year find themselves locked into too much debt while saving too little for their new baseline lifestyle. Sad thing is that most of the time some decent planning will get most of that lifestyle anyway, and you'll actually be able to retire before you keel over at the scope.
No question that I would be willing to work until I was older, if I could start part time, like, now. One of the difficulties for me is that the market in forensic path is different. While there are part time jobs out there, they appear to be relatively few, perhaps not in locations I would prefer, and if I found one there is even less of a guarantee a "part time" position would remain for the length of time I might be looking at. Anyway, point being, there are individual idiosyncrasies to take into account. Personally I'm just trying harder to pay off debt, save, invest moderately intelligently, and review my projections on a regular basis, so my decisions can be more about what I want and less about pure necessity.
