The benefits of compound interest are just too great of an opportunity to pass up. The rich invest in the stock market, in fact the richest man in the world Warren Buffet got that way by investing in good companies. If the rich are doing something with their money doesn't that mean that it is a wise thing to look into it? Trading has historically made millions of people rich so there is something to this whole trading thing. Banks take the money they get for CDs invest them in the stock market and pay you back a small percentage of the profit they made. Call me crazy but it seems much wiser to figure out this stock market thing then to put your money in a bank and let them make the huge returns. Retirement planning can get very overwhelming very quickly. This is usually because of all of the different things that you need to think about while planning. If you would like to have a comfortable retirement-which most people do, you will want to learn as much as you can about it and be comfortable with the terminology and options. You will want to be aware of the more popular retirement investments. Considering the different investments for early retirement planning, pension payout is one of the first ones you should look at. This is one of the best moves in early retirement planning that anyone could make. At some point in life you are going to be asked whether you would like to have your whole pension in a big chunk all at once, or if you would rather prefer to get your pension in payments. Usually, you will have a larger tax penalty if you take it all at once, than if you take the withdrawals, but this largely depends on your individual situation. You will probably want to get the advice of a financial advisor or an accountant if you have access to one. This is because everyone's situation is so different. You are going to want to be sure that you are making the right decision here so that you can get the most out of your early retirement planning. Another idea for making investments for early retirement planning is to deal with social security early, and more than anything you want to make sure that you do not retire too early. This is actually one of the most common mistakes that people make when it comes to retirement, and so you want to make sure that you do not get too eager here. Your social security payout is based off of your average salary made in your best 35 years of work. If you retire before you can get in thirty five years there will be zeros averaged in which may drastically lower your payout. Try to make sure you work as long as possible in order to get the most out of your social security for early retirement planning. Those who identify with the adult child syndrome-that is, were brought up in a dysfunctional, alcoholic, or abusive home-of-origin and suffer from arrested development-often are also afflicted with a disease known as "codependence. " What does it have to do with the fundamental syndrome and what is it to begin with? The understanding of a concept can often be augmented with comparisons, which increase the clarity of one when discussed in relation to the other. In this case, oddly, it can be achieved with the field of astronomy and what is known as a binary star. Consisting of two identical stars, each locks on to the other's gravity and perpetually orbits the other until one or the other ultimately dies out. They can be considered "codependent," because they look toward the other and therefore rely on it for their existence. Adult children may, at times, engage in their own binary star symbiosis with people. Those who live with or are closely associated with those who are chemically or alcoholically dependent for their daily functioning can be considered "codependent," because they quickly become "dependent" with and through them. Although the primary person may be considered the one afflicted with the disease, the secondary one or ones, who are usually the children chronically exposed to his or her behavior, adopt a byproduct of it, struggling to keep it together and function as optimally and efficiently as they can in the world after childhood circumstances progressively pulled them apart. Liquor and/or other substances need not be present. Indeed, para-alcoholism, an early term for codependence, implies that a person's actions are driven by the unresolved, painful emotions and fears he was forced to shelve in order to survive the unstable and sometimes detrimental effects of being raised by the alcoholic himself. Origins, Definitions, and Manifestations of the Disease: The codependent seed is planted when a person turns his responsibility for his life and happiness to either his ego (false self) or others, becoming preoccupied with them to the extent that he temporarily rises above his own pain and, in its extreme, can entirely forget who he even is, when he consistently mirrors someone else-in other words, if he looks out here to the other, he will not have to look in there to himself. "Codependence, (a major manifestation of the adult child syndrome), is a disease of lost self-hood," according to Dr. Whitfield in his book, "Co-Dependence: Healing the Human Condition" (Health Communications, 1991, p. "It can mimic, be associated with, aggravate, and even lead to many of the physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual conditions that befall us in daily life. "When we focus outside of ourselves, we lose touch with what is inside of us: beliefs, thoughts, feelings, decisions, choices, experiences, wants, needs, sensations, intuitions. These and more are part of an exquisite feedback system that we can call our inner life. In short, a person can sever his connection with his consciousness and consciousness is who he really is. Like expecting a home appliance to operate without plugging it into an electric socket, a codependent may merge with and feed off of another to such an extent that he no longer believes he can function independently. The origins of the malady are the same as those which cause the adult child syndrome. "The hallmark of codependency is taking care of people who should have been taking care of you," according to Dr. Susan Powers of the Caron Treatment Centers. Instead of being self-centered and expecting to get their needs met, children from dysfunctional, alcoholic, or abusive homes are forced, at a very early age, to become other- or parent-centered, meeting their needs, attempting to resolve or fix their deficiencies, and sometimes making Herculean efforts to achieve their love in what may be considered an ultimate role reversal. If this dynamic could be verbally expressed, the parent would say, "What I can't do, you're expected to do yourself, substituting you for me. And this reality may well extend beyond themselves, since they are often forced to replace their parents during times that their younger siblings have need for them, becoming surrogate mothers and fathers. In essence, they disregard their own need for a parent and become one themselves. Instead of being nurtured, they cultivate codependence, since it places them on a path that will entail seeking it in others. "Our experience shows that the codependent rupture, which creates an outward focus to gain love and affection, is created by a dysfunctional childhood. ," according to the "Adult Children of Alcoholics" textbook (World Service Organization, 2006, p. ) "The soul rupture is the abandonment by our parents or caregivers. (and) sets us up for a life of looking outward for love and safety that never comes. This condition is only exacerbated by the same parents who neither support nor permit a child to express or heal his hurts-and may actually be met with denial or shame if he tries to do so-leaving him little choice but to stuff and swallow them, resulting in a repressed, but mounting accumulation of unresolved negative emotions. After repeated squelching of a child's observations, feelings, and reactions-in essence, his reality-he progressively disconnects from his true self and denies his crucial inner cues. Unraveling, he is poised on the threshold that leads from in to out-that is, toward others and away from himself, sparking the conflict between his once true and since replaced false self, which manifests itself as codependence. Forced, additionally, to focus on his parent's moods, attitudes, and behaviors further plants the roots of this condition, but nevertheless becomes a necessary survival tactic for two primary reasons. First and foremost, children assume responsibility for their parents' deficiencies and ill treatment by justifying it, erroneously reasoning that their own flaws, lack of worth, and general unloveability are the culprits for the withholds of their validation and acceptance, thus shifting the burden from the ones who should be carrying it to the one who should not. Secondly, adopting a sixth sense concerning their parents' moods becomes a safety gauge and enables them to emotionally and physiologically prepare themselves for what has most likely become habitual and even cyclical negative confrontations of verbal and physical abuse. As episodes of "expected abnormalcy," they add insurmountable layers of trauma to the original, but no longer remembered one. Unable, then or now, to use the body's fight or flight survival mechanisms, yet still drowned in a flood of stress hormones (cortisol) and elevated energy, they have no choice but to tuck themselves into the inner child protective sanctuary they created at a very young age as the only realizable "solution" to the parental-threatened and -inflicted danger, enduring, tolerating, and downright surviving the unfair power play and "punishment" they may believe is being administered because of "deserved discipline. Like signals, a mere frown on or cringe of a parent's face may prime the child for the episodes he knows will assuredly follow. So thick can the tension in the air become at these times, that he can probably cut it with a knife. Part of the wounding, which reduces a person's sense of self and esteem and increases his feeling of emptiness, occurs as a result of projective identification. Volatility charged, yet unable to get to the center of or bore through his emotional pain, a parent may project, like a movie on to a screen, parts of himself on to another, such as his vulnerable, captive child, until that child takes on and identifies with the projection. Releasing and relieving himself, the sender, (the parent) does not have to own or even take responsibility for his negative feelings. If the recipient (the child) ultimately acts them out after repeated projected implanting, whose emotions now mount into uncontainable proportions, the sender may berate or belittle him for them, in an ultimate out-of-persona dynamic, which transfers emotions from one to the other. "If we have unhealthy boundaries, we are like sponges that absorb the painful, conflicted material of others sent from their inner life," wrote Whitfield in "Co-Dependence: Healing the Human Condition" (Health Communications, 1991, p. "It is clearly not ours, yet we soak it up. "(This only causes) the true self to go into hiding to protect itself from the overwhelming pain of mistreatment, abuse, lack of being affirmed and mirrored in a healthy way, and the double and other negative messages from toxic others around it," he noted. These incidents, needless to say, become breeding grounds for both the adult child syndrome and its codependent manifestation. "The adult child syndrome is somewhat interchangeable with the diagnosis of codependence," according to the "Adult Children of Alcoholics" textbook (World Service Organization, 2006, pp. "There are many definitions for codependence; however, the general consensus is that codependent people tend to focus on the wants and needs of others rather than their own. By doing so, the codependent or adult child can avoid his or her own feelings of low self-worth. A codependent focuses on others and their problems to such an extent that the codependent's life is often adversely affected. Part of a codependent's breeding occurs because a child needs his parents for his emotional and psychological development, yet he often dips into a dry well when he connects with them to achieve this goal, emerging dissatisfied, unfulfilled, and almost stung by the negative, rejecting energy. He may, in fact, implement several strategies to attain what he vitally needs, but will often fail, since his parents themselves never received what he seeks because of their own dysfunctional or incomplete childhoods. If they could be considered profit-and-loss statements, they would most likely show an emotional deficit and, eventually, so, too, will the child, prompting his ultimate outward- and other- focus. Bombarded with parental blame and shame, a child can quickly believe that he causes others' negative or detrimental actions by virtue of his sheer existence, as if he were a negatively influencing entity and may carry both this belief and its burden for most of his life. "As children, we took responsibility for our parents' anger, rage, blame, or pitifulness. ," according to the "Adult Children of Alcoholics" textbook (World Service Organization, 2006, p. "This mistaken perception, born in childhood, is the root of our codependent behavior as adults. Whitfield uncovers an even deeper cause. "The cause of codependence is a wounding of the true self to such an extent that, to survive, it had to go into hiding most of the time, with the subsequent running of its life by the false or codependent self," he wrote in "Co-Dependence: Healing the Human Condition" (Health Communications, 1991, p. "It is thus a disease of lost self-hood. is wounded so often that to protect (it), it defensively submerges (splits off) deep within the unconscious part of the psyche," he also noted (p. This split, one of the many detriments of codependence, arrests this development, as his inner child remains mired in the initial trauma that necessitated its creation. Although his chronological age may advance, his emotional and psychological progress remains suspended, creating the adult child. His body and physical statue may suggest the first part of this "adult" designation to others, but his reactions may more closely approximate the second "child" part of it. Conflicted, he may engage in an internal battle he does not entirely understand, as his adult side wishes and needs to function at an age-appropriate level, but his child half clings to the sting of his unresolved harm, seeking sanctuary and safety.