For most of us, retirement was that long-awaited reward of peace and quiet that automatically rewarded us after a long, hard life of hard work for government-controlled corporations or organizations.

Actually these days, nothing could be further from the truth.

Imagine waking up one morning in the middle of winter, with your bus pass in one hand and your pension book in the other, and finding yourself with the sad reality that instead of having a regular monthly income that almost covered your expenses, that income it had been replaced by the very generous handout from the state jokingly called a pension.

Wow, £85 a week for a single person and around £120 for a couple. Well, at least the house was paid for, so there’s no rent or mortgage.

With an average UK income of around £20,000, and with both working, it was surprising how they always managed to spend a little more than their combined income.

But of course the government has announced that it will re-introduce a kind of earnings-related pension, but not until at least 2012.

Then, of course, there is the question of home ownership. What were your plans here? Pass it on to your children or sell it and move into rented accommodation?

Well, if you were planning on keeping it, for whatever reason, you better make sure you stay fit and healthy (both), as a report released earlier this year showed that more than 50% of us will have to sell the home of their family. only to cope with terrifyingly high home care costs, as local authorities will no longer be able to afford this support.

So how did we as a society get into this situation?

The secret can be found in the way we are taught from a young age, from our parents and peers, and society as a whole. We are taught and encouraged to work for money, not to make money work for us.

The entire fabric of our society is built on the principle that we should do well in school, get great grades, and then go and get a job for someone else’s company, selling our time for money.

Work for money and not make money work for us!

Now, for many people, this is the established status quo, and many millions will continue to act this way. Let’s face it, the entire fabric of society still depends on this structure, and for those who break out of this mold, you’ll want people to do jobs and chores for you, or even become employees of your companies.

However, for a growing percentage of people, the ‘status quo’ is not enough. You want more, you know you are capable of more, so you are going to look for an escape route to a more fulfilling and rewarding lifestyle.

It takes tremendous courage to start thinking “outside your box,” and many people just never get over the first hurdle. This big hurdle to get over is letting your brain think that what you want to do is possible.

Unless you start ‘Thinking like a rich person’, you will always be a slave to money, to be exploited by those who know ‘The Secret’.

Too many people think they could never achieve what they say Sir Richard Branson did. Why? He was born rich, he didn’t make any mistakes in his life? I bet he made mistakes, but did he turn around and die at the first signs of adversity? Did he say, ‘Well, if British Airways opposes me, then that’s it, back to factory work tomorrow?’

No. He knew in his mind that he could and would win, so he continued, and now, look at the result.

Most people don’t realize that many of the “rich and famous” weren’t born rich, many of them were college dropouts (Bill Gates, for example), and many of them have gone bankrupt.

But did that stop Donald Trump or Stephen Pierce?

No problem. And if you have any ambition to break from the current stranglehold that society has put around your neck, you should take the time to learn and study what these ‘Icons of society’ have achieved, what traumas they went through and how they achieved the wonderful styles of life that they now obviously enjoy.

If you could have one, or maybe two of these rich and famous (and sometimes not so famous) people, share their innermost secrets with you about how they got to fame, and got a different opinion every month, then the law of Averages will tell you that after a short time, you will be emulating them and your lifestyle will be transformed out of all proportion to your current circumstances.

So what’s stopping you from retiring tomorrow, telling your boss you can’t afford to work there anymore, and moving on to a life of financial independence, doing what you want, when you want, with whom you want?

And as for pensions… what pensions…?