[HN Gopher] Building a vision of life without work (2015)
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Building a vision of life without work (2015)
Author : milkcircle
Score : 354 points
Date : 2021-07-13 14:03 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (livingafi.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (livingafi.com)
| SavantIdiot wrote:
| I'm 52 and have 2.5MM in an IRA (200k cash) and debt of just a
| $200k mortgage (and this is weaksauce compared to my peers who
| all became VPs or C*Os). And the idea of trying to live off an
| IRA that is currently stocks/bonds/ETFs scares the bejeebers out
| of me. I think it is more about the personality than the money:
| do you have the risk-tolerance like this guy to say "fuck it, it
| will all work out," or are you like me and think, "its still not
| enough ... inflation is gonna explode ... the market will
| collapse as soon as i quit ... if i stop working i'll never get
| hired again because i'm old ... if i retire early i'll probably
| get in car accident and go broke from medical bills...".
|
| Some of us are just naturally full of panic, others can jump into
| the mist and be OK with that.
|
| EDIT: Added this scene from Indiana Jones (#3) that has stuck
| with me my whole life (and I'm an athiest!):
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-JIfjNnnMA
| dheera wrote:
| How do you get 2.5M in an IRA if they only let you put in 6K a
| year? Can you buy dogecoin in an IRA?
| qntty wrote:
| The 6k limit is for a Roth IRA, which is only one kind of
| IRA.
| dheera wrote:
| Seems to apply to both:
|
| > The 2021 limit for contributions to Roth and traditional
| IRAs is $6,000
|
| https://www.investopedia.com/roth-and-traditional-ira-
| contri...
| SavantIdiot wrote:
| I've had a 401K since I was 21 (30+ years investing) and put
| the max in every year following the "normal" investment
| strategy (balanced mutual funds). _And_ had company matching
| almost every year as well. This means I invested through the
| tech boom of the 90 's and the recovery of 2008. At one point
| I left jobs and rolled the 401K into a managed IRA because I
| didn't have a job for a brief period. Now I have another 401K
| with another company, but I chose not to roll my original one
| into the new 401K because my IRA has better investment
| options.
|
| TL;DR: Start investing as soon as you can, and by "investing"
| I mean the Warren Buffet way on the diversified mutual fund
| grid (cap vs valuation), and not this memestock/crypto B.S.
| awithrow wrote:
| If you had a 401k when leaving a job, you can roll that into
| your IRA. A 401k has much higher limits
| dheera wrote:
| so you can put upto 401K into an IRA when you leave?
| awithrow wrote:
| no, the savings vehicle at many workplaces is called a
| 401(k) (named after the section of the tax code that
| describes it). When you leave a job that offered the
| 401(k) you can take the money that was in it and transfer
| it to your IRA. This process is called a "rollover".
| 401(k)s have much higher contribution limits, can have
| money added to it by the employer (usually via matching
| contributions) and sometimes have methods to add after
| tax money to them.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > do you have the risk-tolerance like this guy to say "fuck it,
| it will all work out,"
|
| He posted a follow-up blog post years later. Sadly, it didn't
| work out for him. He had to return to work.
|
| I agree with your general sentiment: Some of these extreme
| early retirement stories are really pushing the limits
| reasonable amounts of money to retire with. I don't think it's
| reasonable for people in their 30s or even 20s to look at their
| finances and assume their spending will stay constant for the
| next 6 decades of their lives.
| chaostheory wrote:
| It's worked out for this guy
| https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/02/22/getting-rich-
| from...
| ddlutz wrote:
| people in 20s and 30s spending usually should go down in
| retirement, right? Ideally you have no mortgage and depending
| on your situation save 1.5k-4k a month post-tax right there.
| mrigor wrote:
| Spending usually looks like a smile curve, high at first
| (travel, hobbies, toys) then low (done all the things) then
| high (medical bills).
| someelephant wrote:
| Sorry to hear you operate at such a high baseline anxiety. I
| certainly hope you've explored every avenue outside addictive
| medications for getting it under control.
|
| And yes, I think any American should rightfully be terrified of
| being bankrupted by medical bills. But the world is a big place
| and a lot of it is much safer than the US.
| SavantIdiot wrote:
| Thanks. My therapist has taught me a technique of collecting
| "past evidence" every time I start to spin-out, and it helps
| me control it, but I'm not sure I could apply it to such a
| big thing, yet. We're working on it. But I like his approach
| more than my friends who are like, "you are better off than
| 99% of the USA so STFU." Yes, I know that, but it doesn't
| address the core mental issue(s).
| mikem170 wrote:
| > American should rightfully be terrified of being bankrupted
| by medical bills
|
| FYI: Retirement accounts are protected from medical bills in
| many states, even without filing bankruptcy. This varies, and
| the amount protected, by state. The feds allow one million
| dollars in an ira to be protected from medical bills if
| declaring bankruptcy. [0]
|
| [0] https://pocketsense.com/can-ira-pay-medical-
| bills-7887792.ht...
| didip wrote:
| Same here, this is why my goal is to simply FI not RE.
|
| Once I FI'ed, then I can take whatever job I want based on fun
| or personal aspiration.
| SavantIdiot wrote:
| Waiting ~6 more years to hit 59.5 so I can try to do exactly
| this and draw from my IRA w/o penalty. (I did some research
| into Roth conversion to avoid penalties but you can only
| withdraw a certain amount and only for certain items, not
| general expenses.)
| trashface wrote:
| A lot of it depends on your yearly spend. My spend is in the
| range of 20 to 30K. Its been in that range for years. I'm just
| not very material-goods oriented (my car is 24 years old). I've
| done some calculations and I would be OK with a 2000->2008
| style downturn, though, a 2000->2013 downturn would be more
| problematic.
|
| Its not the lifestyle for everyone though, I agree. Though, I
| do think its prudent for younger people to plan _as if_ they
| might need to retire early, since the market may decide that
| they are no longer needed or desirable as workers. Perhaps
| especially so for tech workers, who already face ageism-based
| discrimination.
| madmaniak wrote:
| The worst thing about not working, travelling, meeting lots of
| great people and ideas is that those people "needs" to work. So
| you don't hang around too much, and their ideas are not being
| developed with time.
| [deleted]
| kaycebasques wrote:
| I've been on a 1-year sabbatical as of 4 June 2021. Not the exact
| same as early retirement but I bet the motivations / experiences
| probably have parallels. I'll note my own responses as someone
| 1-month into a period of no work:
|
| > Let's talk a bit about the idea of loss. Having a sense of loss
| is not restricted to things that you like or love.
|
| I don't feel that much yet, but intuitively I see how it might
| creep up in the coming months.
|
| > When most people ask you what you're going to do with your free
| time, they typically see you sitting at home, alone, in an empty
| space.
|
| Personally, I absolutely do not have that problem and is probably
| why I knew I could take the leap. There is SO much that I want to
| do and work on, I don't even think a year is enough time.
|
| > folks who cruise into post-employment life with a firm vision
| of how things are going to look tend to do better.
|
| One thing that's helping me a lot is that I pick a focus for each
| week. Last week I worked on my grandpa's autobiography (he told
| me stories and I turned it into a coherent chronological text and
| I'm now in the process of making a website out of all the
| stories, supplemented with historical photos). One week is a
| decent amount of time to make progress and then by the end of the
| week I start to get bored and get to transition to something else
| which keeps it exciting and fun. I also lined up a long list of
| goals before the sabbatical started.
|
| > My favorite method was created by Ernie Zelinski, author of
| several early-retirement lifestyle books.
|
| I'm not seeing anything on this author. Does anyone have a link
| to his most popular work?
|
| > We sort of know what we want to do, but when given a full day
| with no obligations, it's common for us to fritter hours away.
|
| So far, this is not as much of a problem for me as I expected.
| It's not hard to focus on things that are interesting to me. I'm
| actually more aware of wasteful habits (Instagram, HN) because I
| know that I only have a year to really do all this sabbatical
| stuff.
|
| [1] https://kayce.basqu.es/sabbatical/prologue
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| The author of the blog post followed up with a post-mortem of
| his FIRE experience several years later:
| https://livingafi.com/2021/03/17/the-2021-early-retirement-u...
|
| The TL;DR is that it was great for the first few years. He
| started diving deep into his writing passion and notes that he
| was very happy. Later, his writing hobby slowed and his partner
| became increasingly dissatisfied with their retirement
| lifestyle. Sadly, he talks about slowly losing friendships,
| losing interest in his writing, and eventually losing his
| marriage over FIRE-related lifestyle choices. I'm sorry it
| didn't work out for him, but it's an interesting contrast to
| this prior post about how he imagined his FIRE lifestyle.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Some of that is probably just the age-group. I've become
| disconnected from many of my friends over the past 10 years
| as well, and I certainly haven't retired.
| zoba wrote:
| I was 2nd employee at a unicorn startup and have been on a work-
| hiatus for almost a year. Now, I live amongst Amish people in the
| country.
|
| My biggest insight has been a mindset change. Previously my
| underlying approach to life looked like: "I will do X which will
| enable me to do Y so that I can finally do Z." I now approach my
| days with "What will make me happy?" This is an experiment I'm
| performing. A structured life feels safe and orderly - but what
| if living life and letting things unfold more 'organically' is
| better?
|
| It is a weird/uncomfortable shift because I can't predict what is
| coming. As an example, turns out I really enjoy building dams. A
| couple months ago I would not have been able to tell you that I'd
| be building a dam.
|
| I have no idea what it is that drives my own interests or
| affinities, but now instead of attempting to manipulate them for
| whatever X, Y, or Z goal... I just roll with wherever they take
| me. And they always seem ready to take me somewhere.
|
| My point is: In a life without work (in my experience) stuff will
| come up. Follow what arises, see where it goes. It certainly
| _feels_ better.
| legohead wrote:
| I know exactly what makes me happy -- playing video games,
| eating good food, living in a nice climate (CA or Hawaii), and
| traveling the world. Unfortunately my happiness comes with a
| price tag.
| david-gpu wrote:
| It may be worth keeping an open mind. Perhaps there are many
| other things which would make you happy if you tried them,
| and they may not cost a lot.
|
| Lately I'm finding joy in all sorts of pursuits that I had
| never thought about. A willingness to try new things was
| necessary.
| sombremesa wrote:
| Being wealthy is like learning a favorite restaurant recipe.
| You start making the same food everyday, because you love it,
| so why not?
|
| It doesn't take very long at all for the honeymoon to be
| over.
|
| So what exactly was making you happy there, when you could
| only eat that meal occasionally in that restaurant? Was it
| really the food?
| sergioisidoro wrote:
| You can have nice weather and nice food for an affordable
| price tag outside of the US. you're probably leaving
| something out of the description of what makes you happy
| simmanian wrote:
| I was exactly like this for a while, until I realized my
| happiness does not have to depend on anything. Like what the
| sibling comment says, if you keep an open mind and try things
| out, you'd be surprised to see what can help you achieve
| sustainable happiness.
| leftbrain wrote:
| I did all that minus the video games while travelling in
| south and south east asia for a year and a half, and with a
| $20 daily budget. Gave up some of the comforts of western
| standard of living and got a whole lot of new friends and
| experiences.
|
| I have kids now and when they are old enough to move out,
| I'll quit my job (programmer, and I love it) and get back out
| there because "The mountains are calling and I must go"
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| I'm curious what comforts you gave up. For me, I'd at
| minimum want a quiet, private room with AC if it's over
| 80F, and a 'non public' bathroom with a lockable door. I
| know that probably rules out a $20/d budget.
| leftbrain wrote:
| I also preferred private rooms, but AC was not an option
| usually since I avoided hotels completely and stayed in
| cheap guesthouses available almost everywhere. Sometimes
| I got a fan, sometimes there were no electricity at all
| in the room. Hostels usually had AC but those would be in
| the big cities, and I'd never stay too long because they
| are expensive. Hell, I could have my own bamboo hut with
| veranda, a hammock and the ocean breeze in a country side
| with the price of a hostel bunk bed in a big city or a
| tourist hot spot!
|
| Private bathrooms I gave up on when I realized those
| attract many bugs I did not want to share my room with.
| Actually I could say you end up sharing the bathroom one
| way or the other. Common ones are fine as long as they
| can be locked and are cleaned regularly. Before I checked
| in at any place, I'd check the common bathrooms to make
| sure if I should...
|
| I would pretty quickly get adjusted to the local way of
| avoiding heat, which is to get up really early in the
| morning, rest in the afternoon and then go back out
| during the evening.
|
| Another pro tip that requires some planning ahead and
| available time is to go to the "south" during winter and
| to the "north" or the mountains during the hot summers.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| Yeah my main thing is I refuse to sweat indoors. I think
| maybe AC will become more of a requirement as wet bulb
| temps go up in the global south over time. When you say
| hotels are expensive, how expensive are we talking? I'm
| in my late 30s, I'm willing to pay for some comforts.
|
| I don't mind 'common' bathrooms, but I _despise_ public
| restrooms with stalls. I want a clean, lockable bathroom
| / shower.
| leftbrain wrote:
| One more thing I gotta add is that you will get used to
| any situation soon enough, especially if the benefits
| outweigh the discomforts. I did. You know how the time
| flies like every day seems long and before you know it a
| year has passed? It's the opposite way out there. The
| days go by fast and after a couple of months and a couple
| of countries I felt like I've been traveling for some
| years already.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| When I was a child, it seemed like time stretched on
| forever. Summers were luxuriously long. As an adult in
| his late 30's? Every day goes by fast; Good or bad.
| Everything feels like it's next shortest unit of time.
| Hours feel like minutes, Days like hours, Weeks like
| days, and so forth. I'm kind of hoping that time slows
| down a bit when I retire (mid 40's), but I doubt it.
| thatfrenchguy wrote:
| Even American bodies can get used to be inside at 80F :-)
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| I keep my place on 78F but I _constantly_ have a fan on.
| 78F with a fan is at the edge of what I 'd consider
| comfortable. I refuse to sweat indoors.
| grecy wrote:
| > _Unfortunately my happiness comes with a price tag_
|
| It doesn't have to be a very high one though.
|
| I quit my job and spent 2 years driving from Alaska to
| Argentina. I poked lava with a stick, paddled with icebergs,
| climbed a 20,000ft active volcano, surfed, etc. etc.
|
| It cost $1,200 per month for absolutely every expense [1]
|
| Before the trip I was earning $48k CAD (about $38k USD).. I
| just didn't spend much.
|
| Later on I quit my job and spent three years driving all the
| way around Africa (35 countries around the perimeter,
| 54,000miles). I rode a camel and camped in the Sahara, I
| carried Chimpanzees, saw gorillas, petted a cheetah, saw tens
| of thousands of elephants in the wild, heard to lions roaring
| while sitting around the campfire, surfed, hiked, ate street
| food with friendly locals, etc. etc.
|
| That trip cost about $1,650 per month for absolutely all
| expenses. [2]
|
| Before that trip I was earning $72k CAD (about $57k USD).
| Again, I just tried hard to save and not spend much money
| while going to work for years)
|
| I've met plenty of people that have driven their own vehicle
| to 100+ countries over a ~decade for about $1,500 a month. It
| doesn't have to be expensive.
|
| Now I do this "for a living". I keep my expenses low and have
| adventures around the world. I just flew to Australia, and
| I'm preparing now to spend about 18 months driving all over
| to all the wild and remote corners I've heard about but have
| never seen.
|
| [1] http://theroadchoseme.com/the-price-of-adventure
|
| [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeR3SncZkv0
| scotty79 wrote:
| I'm doing exactly that. Except for traveling. Always hated
| that. And climate is good enough for me where I always lived.
| And take out food is often declicious.
|
| So yeah. I'm just sitting at home, playing video games and
| ordering takeouts. Pricetag is not that high.
|
| And that's the current best answer to "What makes me happy?"
| munificent wrote:
| I think it's important to understand that "what makes you
| happy" is much more contextual than we realize. If you're
| sitting outside in the freezing cold, you might think that
| what makes you happy is "wearing big heavy coats and drinking
| cocoa". That's true _right now_ because you 're fucking cold.
| But get out of the cold and your happiness goals may change.
|
| Often, happiness is simply "what addresses the imbalances in
| my life right now?"
|
| Today, you're probably busy working a 9-5 (or longer). You
| spend much of your time overwhelmed by the complexity of your
| job, delaying gratification and doing things you don't want
| to do. You're stuck inside all day and working through the
| nicest months of the year.
|
| _In that context_ , of course all you want to do is sit
| outside at a beach, play some leisurely videogames, and eat
| good meals. But that's because your life right now has a
| distinct absence of downtime, nature, and leisure.
|
| When you are retired, the entire context is different and
| thus what makes you happy will shift too. Once you no longer
| have a job, you'll likely find videogames boring and
| understimulating. When you start taking a walk every day in
| the woods, you might not crave moving to Hawaii quite as
| much. And when you have the time to cook and savor meals
| every evening, eating out loses some of its lustre.
|
| Whenever the situation of your life changes, expect your
| happiness goals to shift too.
| caddemon wrote:
| What you're saying is true, but people don't always do what
| actually makes them happy - see addiction. There are teams
| of people out there building social media sites, games,
| etc. that are designed to keep you on there as long as
| possible. Not for you to get entertainment out of it.
|
| I think that's dangerous. Maybe in a world without work the
| incentives would change and these platforms might not exist
| in the same way. But as it stands now >50% of the people I
| know with too much time on their hands end up self-
| admittedly pissing most days away. A few of them have
| already decided to return to work even though they don't
| need to.
| codesternews wrote:
| What are you doing on HN?
| CleverLikeAnOx wrote:
| As someone in a similar boat (6 months into not working at
| this point), I still love hacker news. I am driven by
| curiosity above most else and this is the best forum on the
| internet by that measure (as far as I am aware).
| jvanvleet wrote:
| This is myself as well. HN is a kind of a National
| Geographic of technology to me.
| lupire wrote:
| Reading and commenting, apparently.
| siva7 wrote:
| i've likely asked myself that question many times since the
| inception of HN
| milliondollar wrote:
| I'm in a similar boat. Not outrageously rich, but rich enough
| that I won't spend it all before I die. Work in a highly
| lucrative industry, which bores the hell out of me. I took a
| couple years off. Built a house, moved in, then.... I was
| definitely hit with a lack of purpose. I'm back to work now at
| old career trying to figure out "what to do with my life"
| again.
|
| There was a Catch-22 for me, in that "working" at any
| organization for any normal sized paycheck just seemed
| ridiculous if it didn't 100% hit on all the "passion" buttons.
| And honestly, no organization will be free of BS that makes
| work work. So making that tradeoff became REALLY hard.
|
| So I decided that if I was going to work, I should just make a
| ton of money. At least the bank account fills while I search
| for the next thing.
| carbonclan wrote:
| Purpose is so key! While I agree to the work life balance....
| I have spent a good 6 years completely consumed 100% into
| work just coz I felt it was my calling! In the bargain lost
| out heavily in my personal life. But not sure if I regret
| that.... After that there was such a huge burnout, I'm still
| recuperating.... Is purpose overrated? Or does it put one off
| balance?
| carbonclan wrote:
| Today, I've changed my career drastically - moved frm
| industry to academia - taking one day at a time. And still
| unsure whr I'm headed. My earlier project-mgmt self would
| be agast to know the me today -
| low_common wrote:
| How do you "live amongst the Amish"? Sounds like you're
| contributing to their community in some ways ie. dam building.
| Did you buy any land from them or a home? Just renting? I
| always assumed that they're an insular community. Want to get
| down there sometime and try the food. PA Dutch food looks so
| good.
| zoba wrote:
| I live around them, interact with them at their stores, etc.
| It's a rural area so people talk a lot more whenever you
| encounter them. The food is tasty, though it goes against
| what I consider healthy so I try not to eat too much of it.
| abcc8 wrote:
| We are lucky enough to live in an area with a strong amish
| presence. Their food is amazing, going out to eat it is like
| eating a wonderful home cooked meal. Amish BBQ, while not as
| flashy as other styes, is also definitely worth a try. Amish
| burnt butter noodles are sublime and are my overall
| favorite... that and the fritters and pies.
| carbonclan wrote:
| Sounds interesting!
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| I think I'm semi-retired at this point. It's taken over a year
| to get to the "What will make me happy?" stage. Initially I
| kept thinking that I needed to spend my downtime learning new
| technologies that would be marketable. Now I'm starting to let
| go of that idea and it's feeling better, though I'm still a bit
| afraid that maybe I'll fall through the cracks and not be
| employable again - but that's probably fine at this point in my
| life. There are a lot of ways you have to change your thinking
| as you transition to a retired or just less-work-focused state.
| Our culture causes us to invest a lot of our identity in work
| and I'm finding that it's taking a while to shift my thinking.
| rubicon33 wrote:
| This is EXACTLY why I am so hell bent on retiring early. I
| recognized this aspect of my being very early on in life. My
| interests come and go, but they are strong. I am capable of
| achieving anything when my mind is truly interested in it but
| unfortunately my mind grows bored with things eventually. In
| retirement, I would just pursue whatever interests me at the
| time! Whether its software, hardware, automotive, or just
| reading.
|
| That freedom is truly priceless.
|
| I only wish I too were 2nd at a unicorn startup ;)
| HellDunkel wrote:
| You realize that X equals ,,work until you have enough to
| retire", Y is ,,retire and find hobby" and Z equals ,,pursue
| hobby"?
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Having done it now for a year, it sounds like you're pretty
| happy with how it's going. Are you satisfied with what you've
| achieved? Or is part of the mindset shift that you're just not
| thinking in those terms any more and are looking only to the
| day to day?
|
| In my working life, I've only ever taken about a month off at a
| time, but every time I've taken a longer break like that, I end
| up ultimately feeling dissatisfied with myself. I go into it
| with what a I think is a reasonable list of chores/projects
| that I want to make progress on, but ended up just puttering
| around-- paradoxically, I get a lot more done when I have short
| bursts of time and have to force myself to bite off a
| manageable chunk and actually see it through.
|
| I've heard people argue that a few weeks just isn't long enough
| to trigger productive restlessness, and that's why a sabbatical
| is more like 6-12 months. But this is what I worry about for
| myself if I were ever in a position to retire young.
| mym1990 wrote:
| I am a similar way and at least for me I feel somewhat
| programmed to be needing to do something or maybe even
| feeling the need for someone to tell me to do something so
| that I can feel like I am creating value(not at all saying
| you are like this, just a personal account). I am in a
| position where I can be unemployed with little consequence,
| but I'm afraid that the free time will just go to waste. And
| I think on a larger scale that is a big problem.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| For me, it's not even the "larger scale"-- I'm well aware
| that the current economic structure allows for a small
| wealthy leisure class who wile away the days indulging
| themselves in socializing and consumption activities. And I
| know there are many who would love nothing more than to
| join that class and just travel, party, play video games,
| whatever.
|
| I just... yeah, don't find it satisfying when I've had
| small tastes of that life. I like to be able to look back
| at the journey and see how it led to growth in my skills
| and achievements I'm proud of showing off.
| zoba wrote:
| I'm quite happy with the outcome so far. Though, my aims are
| humble. My intention for this period of life (however long it
| lasts) is to live 'organically' and observe the results. My
| primary observation is that I'm happy consistently -
| something that was inconceivable with my old style of X to Y
| to Z goal planning.
|
| In your second paragraph you mention trying to be as
| productive as possible during your time off. Seems like you'd
| be setting yourself up for disappointment there. If you
| instead approach that time off with 'whatever happens,
| happens' approach you'll be more forgiving of yourself and
| may actually be able to relax so you can be more productive
| later.
|
| The theory I'm exploring is that happiness is healthy. By
| living happily, perhaps I am repairing whatever damage I did
| when I was so intensely on the career grind (it was rewarding
| but, ultimately unhealthy in a burnout way). And, by doing
| that repair, perhaps I'll be better suited to be even more
| productive.
| mnowicki wrote:
| Do you mean more productive so that you can return to work
| of some kind and accomplish more than you have in the past?
| If so, then even if your theory proves to be true, wouldn't
| you rather continue living happily instead of using that
| period of happiness to fuel more productivity even if it
| doesn't make you as happy?
|
| Or by more productive, are you referring more to building
| more dams rather than working more?
| GeorgeTirebiter wrote:
| Building dams, eh? Are you somehow inspired by this little guy:
| https://web.mit.edu/graphicidentity/tim-the-beaver.html
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > Previously my underlying approach to life looked like: "I
| will do X which will enable me to do Y so that I can finally do
| Z." I now approach my days with "What will make me happy?"
|
| Great insight that is worth repeating.
|
| One of my biggest problems with FIRE discussions is how much
| they reinforce the idea that retirement is a prerequisite for
| achieving happiness. This leads a lot of FIRE-minded people to
| double down on jobs they hate that consume too much of their
| time and energy, only because they think it will better enable
| them to be happy later.
|
| For the lucky few who can be early employees at unicorn
| startups, that might be true. For the average FIRE person
| working a $100-200K/year job, they might be better off scaling
| back to a sustainable 40hr/week job and making a point of
| taking vacations and doing activities in their off time. Even
| if that means taking a paycut and delaying their target
| retirement date.
|
| You don't have to wait until FIRE to start taking vacations,
| doing hobbies, or working on projects. If a job is consuming so
| much of your life that you feel you don't have time to do
| _anything_ else, it 's time to reevaluate the job.
| cletus wrote:
| I see it a little differently.
|
| As an analogy, I'm a big believer in caloric intake
| determining weight for most people. Consume more calories
| than you use and you will tend to gain weight. Consume less
| and you will tend to lose weight. So to get a caloric deficit
| you can exercise more or eat less. But... it's 90-95% diet.
|
| Bringing this back to FIRE, the key lesson I think is that
| what matters in having financial freedom is controlling costs
| not maximizing income. Expenses can (and often do) _easily_
| rise to your level of income. People fall in these traps of
| thinking they need a $5m house instead of a $2m house, or a
| bigger boat or a third vacation home.
|
| But if you control your expenses AND can be happy then you
| doubly benefit: you increase your savings (and thus the time
| required until you have financial independence) AND you
| decrease how much money you need in retirement because you're
| accustomed to lower costs.
|
| So the point of FIRE is (IMHO) not to seek satisfaction
| through material things but rather through your approach to
| life and your experiences.
|
| I've seen this with coworkers who convince themselves they
| need $50,000pa/child for private school, $500k+ plus to pay
| for each child's Ivy League education and so forth and kill
| themselves to achieve that. Worse, they can become bitter and
| unhappy as they realize how long that will take them to
| achieve even as the top 1% of earners.
|
| So not only are they working super-hard for longer they're
| seeing their families less and bringing home this negativity
| and entitlement. All of that is a prison of your own making.
|
| FIRE philosophically is about really examining what you need
| and what's really important.
| sokoloff wrote:
| > For the average FIRE person working a $100-200K/year job,
| they might be better off scaling back to a sustainable
| 40hr/week job and making a point of taking vacations and
| doing activities in their off time.
|
| In software right now, I think it's not difficult to have a
| sustainable low-six-figure job where you take vacations and
| have activities and off time to enjoy them.
| sidlls wrote:
| That depends on the region and industry. Outside of "tech
| hubs" like the Bay Area, most software jobs paying close to
| six-figures are still more like "business casual, butt in
| the seats" than they are "WFH 2x/week, wear sandals and
| shorts if you want".
|
| These jobs have things like accrued PTO, limited perks, and
| relatively inflexible time-off tolerance that is highly
| dependent on the manager's whim.
|
| "Not difficult" is relative, really.
| babyblueblanket wrote:
| I heavily disagree, especially in current times. "small
| startup" culture happens outside of tech hubs if you
| look, especially anywhere that's close to a state
| university with any substantial CS program. Trying to
| recruit new grads as a small company in an ok-but-not-hub
| city means bending some QOL considerations, especially in
| demand jobs like devs.
| neogodless wrote:
| In general the focus should be:
|
| Be mindful. Informed. Increase your knowledge, consider
| alternatives, and make decisions given an expanded list of
| options. (Don't just go with the default, common, mainstream
| way of thinking that leads to people retiring at age 65 after
| decades of hating their job.)
|
| I'm a proponent of many of the concepts of FIRE, but in some
| ways, the attitude started way before I started reading Get
| Rich Slowly, and Mr. Money Mustache. I'm all about putting
| effort into things I really care about, while being efficient
| and judicious with effort being put into things I don't care
| about. Work is usually not at the top of my list on things I
| care about. So I have changed jobs frequently to find ones
| that pay better than the last, and are also a better fit for
| me. Shorter commute. Better team. More engaging work.
|
| Along the way, spending below my means and ensuring money I
| do spend actually provides the result I expect (i.e. lasting
| happiness that a lot of spending doesn't really provide) has
| been instrumental in making thoughtful decisions while also
| accumulating that cushion that can eventually wean me off
| paid work as a necessity.
|
| In other words, I don't choose jobs that suck because they
| pay well, so I can get to a "finish line" faster. I put all
| the variables into play, and make sure I'm enjoying life now
| while also expanding the flexibility I'll have in the future.
|
| While we agree on a lot of things, maybe we read different
| "FIRE discussions" because many of them factor these things
| in. Compulsory work limits your options, and even more so,
| spending all your money or beyond your means limits your
| options indefinitely. That doesn't mean retirement creates
| happiness, or is a prerequisite for a good life, but getting
| beyond that work requirement can certainly give you a lot
| more freedom in how you choose to use your time.
| sunshineforever wrote:
| I would feel like a king with 20k a year and so I am trying
| to find the right degree to work 3, maybe 2 days a week to be
| able to achieve this?
|
| Any suggestions?
| scarby2 wrote:
| > I would feel like a king with 20k a year and so I am
| trying to find the right degree to work 3, maybe 2 days a
| week to be able to achieve this?
|
| 20k? did you miss a digit? That's less than my rent for the
| year...
|
| for 3 days anything that pays more than $18 an hour and
| allows for flexible scheduling
|
| you don't need a degree for this.
|
| Medical transcription, coding and billing, working as a PA,
| Truck driving, nursing the list goes on.
| littleweep wrote:
| This person likely lives in a different place than you
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| If you find anything let me know. Of course here in the US
| the nigh-insurmountable problem with part time work is that
| you won't get health coverage at an affordable rate.
| svachalek wrote:
| Yes, it's actually a bit better since "Obamacare" but
| still pretty ridiculous. Another is simply finding an
| employer who agrees to a part-time engineer. I'm
| typically on 3-6 major projects at any given time and it
| seems pretty obvious that simply dropping to 2-3 and
| working half the time would be a pretty easy adjustment
| to both sides -- but most management considers this
| unthinkable for some reason.
| jimbokun wrote:
| This is the case where it might make sense to earn
| $100k-$200k per year and plow the majority of it into
| savings until you can get a fairly safe $20k return.
|
| Might only take a few years to save the required amount.
| monktastic1 wrote:
| > One of my biggest problems with FIRE discussions is how
| much they reinforce the idea that retirement is a
| prerequisite for achieving happiness. This leads a lot of
| FIRE-minded people to double down on jobs they hate that
| consume too much of their time and energy, only because they
| think it will better enable them to be happy later.
|
| On the FIRE subreddit, anyway, they're very clear that:
|
| 1. It's the FI part that really matters. RE is just one
| possible choice of what to do with it.
|
| 2. It's silly to make yourself miserable until you're FI.
|
| 3. FI is not magic. It will not meet your expectations unless
| you've carefully thought through what it is you want to do
| with that freedom.
| stouset wrote:
| "Build the life you want, then save for it" has become the
| mantra of these subreddits as of late, which I think is a
| much better approach than the "live and eat like a college
| student so you can live and eat like a college student for
| the rest of your life but without having to work" that it
| used to come across as.
| borski wrote:
| This was what always turned me off from FIRE stuff, and
| I'm glad to hear it's changing. I've seen so many friends
| go down the path of "convince myself it's okay to be
| absolutely miserable for 10-15 years so that I can
| continue to do that forever but without someone paying me
| to be miserable" and it is extremely sad to watch, and
| often very hard to convince someone not to do.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| stouset wrote:
| I'm replying again to this same comment, but anecdotally #3
| is something I've seen to a surprising degree.
|
| There are a _lot_ of posts in FI subreddits /forums where
| people have retired early and are totally lost, asking what
| they should do to find meaning or enjoyment out of life now
| that they're not working. They've spent so much of their
| time and energy of their prime years on working and saving
| that they haven't had anything left over to discover what
| sorts of things really bring them fulfillment, and it's
| incredibly disheartening to see.
| balfirevic wrote:
| > they might be better off scaling back to a sustainable
| 40hr/week job
|
| 40hr/week is the unsustainable part.
| nradov wrote:
| That's only 24% of your time most weeks, even less on weeks
| when you have holidays or vacation. What's unsustainable?
| In fact many people have done it their whole adult lives,
| which makes it sustainable by definition.
| burntoutfire wrote:
| It may be 24% of time, but it's something like 70% of my
| energy. Add chores on top of that and there's barely any
| energy left for discretionary activities.
| scarby2 wrote:
| > That's only 24% of your time most weeks, even less on
| weeks when you have holidays or vacation. What's
| unsustainable? In fact many people have done it their
| whole adult lives, which makes it sustainable by
| definition.
|
| It's significantly more than 50% of the time that's
| available to me, by the time you factor in the things
| that i do because of work it's getting to around 70%.
|
| Not that many people have done it their entire lives in
| the way we do today. Now we have the majority of
| millennials with 2 people trying to do a 40 hour week
| along with all of the other things that need to be done.
| I would argue a 40 hour work week + extras is great if
| i'm not cooking, cleaning, doing much childcare etc.
|
| If we look back at pre-industrial humans we'll see that
| the striking thing is quite how much time they spend not
| doing anything productive.
| sunshineforever wrote:
| The time of sleep does not belong to us.
|
| Terrible at math (heh) but its something like multiply
| 24% by 2/3. Aka 24/3=8
| sidlls wrote:
| Factoring in activities in support of work (commute,
| dress), it's more than 50% of one's waking hours during
| the week.
| yarcob wrote:
| 40h/week of work leaves very little time for household,
| kids, exercise, side projects, and relaxing.
|
| I think 20h/week is a more reasonable target if you want to
| enjoy things beside work.
|
| Of course it's okay to work 40h/week if you really want to,
| or even more, if you enjoy it, but you should really think
| hard about whether that's really what you want, or if it's
| just what your employer wants you to do.
| AlexTWithBeard wrote:
| > 20h/week
|
| That's what I have an issue with.
|
| When I'm working on a problem, I cannot simply forget
| about it at 3pm and head to the beach to enjoy life. The
| problem will be in my head 24/7 until one of us gives up.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| If you have the flexibility to restrict your work to 20
| hr/wk you probably also get to decide when you work;
| nothing says you can't work 20 hrs straight, or 80
| hrs/week for a month and then take a break. Lots of
| consulting-type work actually prefers this approach.
| psyc wrote:
| In my 20s, I was very much like this. When I was
| struggling with burnout, an older colleague told me that
| when he leaves the building, he shuts work off entirely
| and enjoys unrelated things. At the time, hearing this
| frustrated me because I couldn't even begin to fathom
| which muscle one would flex in order to "shut off"
| thinking about work.
|
| But now I'm the age that he was back then, and I find I
| can compartmentalize or turn off work thinking easily.
| I'm not suggesting it's a factor of age, exactly, but
| perhaps some other change that occurs over time? Not
| really sure, but something in my head definitely changed.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| This is very dependent on the individual. I personally
| prefer intense, all-consuming project-oriented work,
| followed by longer gaps to recover. I think what we share
| is some form of a state of decompression/recovery though.
| walletburst wrote:
| This is where I think the concept of "coasting" to
| financial independence could be beneficial for many. The
| idea is that you build up enough investments early in
| life such that without any additional contributions, your
| net worth will grow to support retirement at a
| traditional retirement age. Then you just need to make
| enough money to cover your monthly living expenses, which
| could open up a lot more career options that better fit
| your desired lifestyle.
|
| https://walletburst.com/tools/coast-fire-calc
| mym1990 wrote:
| I think the prospect of being _very_ financially stable changes
| the equation in such considerable ways. To me, the difficulty
| in finding 'happiness'(not sure if that is totally a thing) or
| purpose becomes an interesting endeavor AFTER you take the
| work/job away. I think after you take away the job(in favorable
| circumstances), you have the 'what now?' moment, and thats not
| an easy thing to answer.
|
| For most people that really isn't a viable option _currently_.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| > As an example, turns out I really enjoy building dams.
|
| Sorry to go off on a tangent, but this really has me wondering.
| How big of a dam are we talking here? Is it actually legal to
| build a private dam?
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "Is it actually legal to build a private dam? "
|
| Not likely. Unless it is a very small stream.
| dangus wrote:
| A comment like this is privilege in a nutshell.
|
| Money to a certain point essentially buys the ability to be
| free and happy, and that's why most people are "in the grind"
| so-to-speak. Being able to even think about making the mindset
| shift you describe is impossible for most people in the country
| let alone the world.
|
| The lifestyle you describe is out of reach for the median
| American making $40-60k a year with a modest amount of credit
| card debt and kids to feed.
|
| I have to wonder how you pay for your shelter, food, and health
| insurance? Is that from your unicorn startup money, or is that
| from your income from building dams?
|
| For most Americans, quitting their corporate job means spending
| something like 2-4x more for healthcare. It means exhausting a
| very short financial runway.
|
| Most Americans are one or two serious medical emergencies away
| from full blown bankruptcy.
|
| That's the irony here: folks advocating for exotic life
| experiences like this don't seem to realize that the bulk of
| the world isn't living life in a materialistic and career-
| focused way _by choice_. We've all just got bills to pay and
| want to be able to afford to go to the doctor or get our kids
| education or buy gas to get to Grandma's house.
|
| If you throw me a modest $5 million lump sum I'll join you on
| your shift in mindset. But until then, sorry, I've got to get
| back to work.
| CleverLikeAnOx wrote:
| For those that this lifestyle appeals to, it is possible in
| America to engineer your life so that it happens. Sure the
| median American is no where close to financial independence,
| but financial independence is attainable for most Americans
| given a couple decades of work if they are willing to change
| their definition of "enough."
|
| Personally, I reduced my target to a mere fraction of the $5
| million you mentioned.
|
| Finally, I completely agree that this is privilege, but
| without any negative judgement therein. Privilege is a thing
| we should be trying to give to more and more people.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| phaemon wrote:
| > the median American making $40-60k a year with a modest
| amount of credit card debt and kids to feed.
|
| Ah, of course. Poor unfortunate Americans. How could you
| possibly feed your children on just $40k a year. No doubt
| that explains the emaciated appearance of the average
| American child.
|
| > A comment like this is privilege in a nutshell.
|
| Copy that out on the blackboard 100 times until the lesson
| sinks in.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| I think this is a great comment. It's possible to overthink
| things (making charts with arrows, etc.) In the end, just going
| with the flow works out better than having a plan. YMMV. If you
| really want to do something, you'll keep thinking of it.
|
| I've been retired 4 years now. I wrote one novel ("Inventing
| the Future", on sale at Amazon!) and finished the first draft
| of another. But I didn't have any plan for this when I retired.
| I just started doing it and it felt right.
| jancsika wrote:
| I'm basically the opposite of you.
|
| There is a pile of merge requests I need to review when I get
| time. And the reason I want to review X, Y, and Z is because I
| personally desire to see improvements X, Y, and Z to the niche
| FOSS software I maintain.
|
| Funny thing is, we are on a forum named "Hacker News" and I'd
| speculate that I'm the outlier and yours is the common case.
| aboodman wrote:
| I noticed the same thing when I stopped working ft. I was
| surprisingly bad at predicting my own interests and what would
| make me feel happy day to day.
|
| It was almost as if I didn't know myself, and in retrospect I
| suppose that was true.
|
| After several years I've started working again but in my own
| way (roci.dev). I'm a lot better at predicting what activities
| will feel good, and managing my time so that end of day/week I
| feel deeply good about how it was spent.
|
| Strongly recommend ^ approach of "rolling with it" for several
| years and trying not to pass judgement with you conscious mind
| on where your unconscious is taking you.
|
| Best of luck getting to know yourself.
| low_common wrote:
| Are you rich/have no kids? Because most people probably cannot
| relate to the life you're living right now.
| lupire wrote:
| I don't think the Amish are particularly rich or childless?
| hesdeadjim wrote:
| This is where assumptions can get you in trouble.
|
| The Amish are extremely business savvy, shrewd negotiators,
| and have no issues being active members in the economy.
| They also own vast tracts of very valuable land (especially
| in Lancaster, PA). Combine that with being frugal and
| austere, and it's a recipe for wealth.
|
| For childcare, their community focus let's them share the
| burden amongst the larger group. Additionally, children are
| not nearly as coddled and are expected to contribute to the
| family's work, and help co-parent their siblings.
|
| Compare this to the average nuclear family: underpaid,
| barely any savings, most likely rents, and lucky if they
| have even one family member nearby that can share the
| childcare burden.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Amish are pretty much like everyone else though, there
| are dirt-poor Amish communities out there to counter-
| balance your land-and-small-business-rich ones.
| hesdeadjim wrote:
| Fair, though the childcare aspect still holds merit.
| UnpossibleJim wrote:
| I will say this, if there is one thing I can do for my
| child (other than learning proper money management), when
| the time is right I will help them with the down payment
| on a home. Holy crap it's so much more important than
| renting. It seems like a hassle, I know, but building
| generational equity gives you such a leg up in the world.
| xur17 wrote:
| I'm going to go ahead and disagree with you. A house is a
| form of forced savings, which is why it works so well for
| people, but you absolutely can build up wealth while
| renting.
| UnpossibleJim wrote:
| It is for sure possible, no argument, but the actuality
| of it is relatively small, while the renters are putting
| in equity into someone else's pocket =/ Your "rent", as
| it were, goes towards something (even if a large portion
| of it is interest.. and extra payment a year towards the
| principal goes a long way).
| godot wrote:
| Although you replied that you did not read the article first,
| I think you still do make a valid point. Here is an excerpt
| from the article:
|
| > Of course, some lucky people already know exactly what
| they're retiring to, answers firmly in hand.
|
| > Examples:
|
| > It's been a lifelong dream of mine to quit my current
| career and take something lower paying and more meaningful:
| teaching or contributing to a non-profit.
|
| > I'm going to do a lot of parenting. My kids can easily eat
| 14 hours a day, every day.
|
| The _second_ example here already calls out that it's going
| to be common to do parenting 14 hours a day if people retire
| early. For someone who has kids, it's pretty unlikely to be
| able to roll with life and see what comes up. It just isn't
| possible, with or without a job, being financially
| independent or not. And whether we like it or not, a large
| percentage of the population above 40 do have kids.
|
| This is purely my opinion, but I'm actually not sure that,
| for a child past 2 years old or so, if it's a good idea for a
| parent to be with their child 24/7. I think there's a lot of
| value in learning social interactions with other children in
| a daycare or preschool. I did this exact thing for 3 years
| and am transitioning the child to preschool at 3 years old,
| and it has been difficult.
|
| On top of it all, let's say your kids are school age,
| somewhere between 3 to 16. Let's say they go to school during
| the day, and you have free time during the day. There is
| another discussion to be had about your kids' mentality if
| they grow up with parents who don't need to work. Sure, maybe
| in the near future, in this next generation, we'll enter a
| society where work is unnecessary and everyone lives off of
| UBI, and maybe the discussion is moot. But assuming that
| won't be the case, would you want your children to grow up
| with the impression that when they grow up into adults
| there's no need to do any productive work, or have parents as
| role models who contribute meaningfully to society?
|
| Maybe I haven't thought it through, maybe I'm just not smart
| enough. I'm at a point in life where I could feasibly "lean
| FIRE" if I really want to, but for the sake of my child I'd
| rather continue to work. Which then leads to answering this
| post, my FI and retirement almost isn't about me, it's about
| my child/children. Or maybe that just means I'm that guy who
| said "I'm going to do a lot of parenting" then.
| low_common wrote:
| Edit: Sorry, I did not read the article before reading your
| comment. The point was "what are you retiring to?" I
| understand what you're saying now.
| [deleted]
| TheSmiddy wrote:
| "I was 2nd employee at a unicorn startup"
|
| They're rich.
| mgh2 wrote:
| We were built to work, to have purpose. Having meaningful work
| is key - this is what the FIRE movement misunderstood.
|
| By meaningful, I mean to someone other your yourself or your
| extended self (family). Our purpose is to serve others, not
| ourselves.
| paulcole wrote:
| I definitely wasn't built to have a purpose.
|
| I took a 3-year early retirement and didn't do anything for
| anyone but myself and loved every minute of it. I watched TV,
| went to the movies, read books, went to the gym, rode my
| bicycle, and that was it. Had no need for anything else.
|
| If I could do that without having a job, I'd happily do it
| for the rest of my life with no problems.
| vlunkr wrote:
| Isn't the post you're replying to evidence against this? They
| have financial independence, and now they are finding
| meaningful work. I agree that we need a sense of purpose for
| happiness/mental health, but why does that have to be
| "working for the man?".
| mgh2 wrote:
| Why is "working for the man" so bad when it gives purpose
| in your life?
|
| The article showed how unsatisfied his wife was when she
| felt as "not going anywhere", I think she was trying to say
| that she does not feel any sort of progress or growth on
| any level.
|
| As it is torture to keep someone in a room with no
| stimulation, it is the same with repetition and no change
| or progress.
|
| _"Industry, thrift and self-control are not sought because
| they create wealth, but because they create character."_ -
| Calvin Coolidge
|
| We need this aspect for personal development.
|
| Metaphor: https://m-g-h.medium.com/disneys-strategy-
| against-netflix-4d...
| bumby wrote:
| > _she does not feel any sort of progress or growth on
| any level._
|
| I think the flip side of this is that many people are so
| focused on progress and looking forward to the next goal
| line that they become unable to appreciate the moment
| and, ironically, happiness is always one more goal away.
| Recently, I've been reading books on Buddhism
| (specifically how it differs from many Western value
| systems) and it sheds some light on this. The same goes
| for the inability to be happy sans constant stimulation.
| jbmny wrote:
| Any particular books you'd recommend?
| bumby wrote:
| You can absolutely find people more qualified for book
| recommendations on the subject than me, but here are a
| few:
|
| _" Confession of a Buddhist Atheist"_ by Stephon
| Batchelor. Useful to me for understanding the cultural
| context of Buddhism.
|
| _Insight Meditation_ by Joseph Goldstein. I just find
| Goldstein 's style the easiest to comprehend in a field
| that often comes across as frustratingly esoteric
|
| _Wherever You Go There You Are_ by Jon Kabat-Zinn. I
| thought this book is interesting because it draws
| parallels to Western authors, particularly Thoreau.
|
| Sam Harris's "Waking Up" app may also be worth a listen.
| Besides the actual mindfulness practice, there are a lot
| of discussions on theory and he has conversations with a
| variety of people that come to the topic from different
| perspectives.
| mnowicki wrote:
| sure there are some people that get meaning from work,
| and who would have trouble finding meaning outside of
| work. But I can't agree that 'working for the man' and
| doing whatever you can do to get by is the best recipe
| for finding the most meaningful work for most people.
|
| In some cases "working for the man" isn't bad and it does
| give people purpose, but in (imo)the majority of cases,
| it is bad because it prevents you from using your time to
| do something you actually find meaningful.
|
| I think the few people who are able to find meaning in
| their jobs are either extremely lucky to have found what
| they want to do, had the opportunity to pursue it and
| succeed, and make a decent enough living doing it without
| the money aspect killing their joy - or they're the type
| of people who have just 'over-assimilated' to modern life
| and found a way to extract meaning from their work, but
| these people would probably be able to find at least as
| much meaning and happiness in something else if they grew
| up in a world where working wasn't expected to be almost
| your entire life.
| vlunkr wrote:
| > why is "working for the man" so bad
|
| I don't think it is necessarily bad, but that doesn't
| mean that there aren't other paths to fulfillment. They
| may not be for you, but they exist.
|
| > it is the same with repetition and no change or
| progress.
|
| If someone chooses to retire and immediately enter a
| vegetative state, that's really their fault.
| westiseast wrote:
| Having meaning, yes.
|
| Meaningful WORK? Not necessarily.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| >this is what the FIRE movement misunderstood.
|
| Only if you take the narrowest view of what FIRE is. There's
| a reason the largest subreddit for it is called
| r/financialindependence. It's _not_ about retiring as early
| as possible. It 's not _having_ to work to survive. It 's
| _choosing_ to work on things which are intrinsically
| meaningful, as much or as little as you like. I don 't think
| anyone in the FIRE movement would tell you it's wise to
| retire to a beach and sip mojitos all day.
| ar_lan wrote:
| Most FIRE people don't just stop working. They just stop
| working boring, 8-5's.
|
| For example, I really want to open my own cidery. But doing
| so would be such a massive paycut that it wouldn't be worth
| pursuing right now, even though it's ultimately what I want
| to do.
|
| So, I'm software engineering until I make enough to FIRE,
| after which I can pursue that dream.
| benhurmarcel wrote:
| We weren't built, we just happen to have evolved. There is no
| higher purpose.
|
| See, your life philosophy isn't universal.
| mym1990 wrote:
| It all depends on what the definition of work here is,
| right(there is the capitalistic sense, or the purely
| physical/mental expenditure of energy)? I don't think we
| really know what we were built for, if anything...
|
| The beauty is that one human can spend 70 years meditating
| and find purpose in that and another human can build a rocket
| ship and go to space and find purpose in that...and then you
| have everything in between and outside!
| samuelbalogh wrote:
| I would disagree with "We were built for work". Evolutionary,
| we were built to survive until reproduction age and a bit
| longer after that, to care for offsprings.
|
| I think people who misunderstand the FIRE movement think that
| early retirees don't want to do meaningful work, like
| volunteering, painting, making music, etc. I think that is
| the point of FIRE - to be able to do the most meaningful
| things you can think of.
| xikrib wrote:
| I'm in a similar situation; the company I worked at was
| acquired a couple of months before the pandemic. The sale gave
| me enough money to retire a few times over, 2 days after my
| 30th birthday. I initially went through a long period of guilt.
| I've tried angel investing, impact investing, doing hackathons,
| applying to fellowships and launching side-projects. I've
| realized that a lot of the skills I've gained in the last
| decade were built around generating money. Yet my happiness and
| fulfillment skills were under-developed.
|
| The most absurd part of it all is how little happiness I got
| from all that money. Meaning and purpose are things you have to
| make up. If you can find happiness in a day job, in some ways
| you're better off than the aimless millionaire.
|
| I'm lucky that I have a huge passion in music and have been
| focusing more on that lately. It's definitely weird for me to
| work on something without a direct financial incentive. Yet
| there are many people in the world, rich or poor, living for
| purposes outside money.
|
| I haven't really had too many people to talk about this with.
| But it feels good to share a bit. DMs open to those in similar
| boats
| zoba wrote:
| I'd love to hear what you've been doing with music. I got a
| Minilogue XD and a couple Other smaller synths. My email is
| the crazy looking link in my profile, would love to hear from
| you.
| amishAmigo wrote:
| You live "among" them meaning "surrounded by" or "as a member
| of" their community?
| fuzzer37 wrote:
| He means Amogus
| zoba wrote:
| Surrounded by and interact with. I'm not Amish myself.
| danbruc wrote:
| This seems unethical to me, you essentially make other people
| work for you. All the returns from your investments are created
| by someone who probably does not have the luxury of retiring
| early, someone who now not only has to work for their life but
| also for yours.
| hiram112 wrote:
| That's not how the math works out, at least in theory. There
| are several principles going on:
|
| 1. You defer consumption today to instead spend it tomorrow. If
| you create $100K in value in a year, but only spend $50K of it,
| shouldn't you be able to instead spend most of that $50K in the
| future? Our whole retirement system is predicated on this.
|
| 2. If you take some of the wealth produced today, and instead
| of immediately consuming it, you "invest" it in something that
| enables more wealth produced tomorrow than otherwise would have
| been possible, you should be rewarded with some of that extra
| wealth produced.
|
| 3. Time value of money. Loaning your money or investing it
| carries a risk. If there is some chance that you may not get it
| all back, then there must be a premium charged to whomever
| wants to use your wealth today. Otherwise, you might as well
| spend it all as soon as you receive it.
| danbruc wrote:
| _1. You defer consumption today to instead spend it tomorrow.
| If you create $100K in value in a year, but only spend $50K
| of it, shouldn 't you be able to instead spend most of that
| $50K in the future? Our whole retirement system is predicated
| on this._
|
| Sure, you are spending what you earned. And if that is what
| you are doing, living a less expensive life so that you can
| finance your entire life with fewer working years, then that
| is perfectly fine. Probably even worth encouraging as this
| probably means you are consuming fewer resources.
|
| _2. If you take some of the wealth produced today, and
| instead of immediately consuming it, you "invest" it in
| something that enables more wealth produced tomorrow than
| otherwise would have been possible, you should be rewarded
| with some of that extra wealth produced.
|
| 3. Time value of money. Loaning your money or investing it
| carries a risk. If there is some chance that you may not get
| it all back, then there must be a premium charged to whomever
| wants to use your wealth today. Otherwise, you might as well
| spend it all as soon as you receive it._
|
| In principle I agree, you should be compensated for deferred
| spending and incurred risk. But something must still be wrong
| as the outcome makes no sense. If I had to guess, I would
| maybe suggest systematic overcompensation, i.e. maybe the
| expected return should actually be exactly zero. But this is
| impossible to do and then there would be no incentives to
| invest, so the target becomes positive expected returns.
|
| But as soon as the expected returns become positive you enter
| the territory of exponential growth which is not sustainable.
| At the very least returns should eventually drop to zero when
| the invested money has been multiplied so often that there is
| no more demand for investments. And all the time you are
| probably creating huge inequality and with this inequality
| one might also end up with a distribution of power where some
| can essentially demand further returns even if they should
| actually be zero.
|
| In the end I have to admit that I can not truly point my
| finger to the issue, yes compensation for investments sounds
| reasonable if you discuss it on its own, but if you look at
| the consequences at large things do not match up. Your money
| does no actual work, it creates no value on its own, why
| should it still allow you to live without working?
| magneticnorth wrote:
| I'm not sure the common alternative for higher-income people is
| more ethical - spending on vacation homes, expensive private
| schools, buying new cars, clothing, appliances, etc when the
| old ones are a little outdated but still usable.
|
| From the point of job creation, this does make more jobs, but I
| think there's a strong argument to be made for living a lower-
| impact life that lets you live on your savings after a shorter
| career.
|
| And as for return on investments, are you suggesting that
| investing in the stock market is immoral? I'm not sure I follow
| your logic about how buying shares in a company and benefitting
| from dividends is immoral, or maybe you had something else in
| mind.
| mrigor wrote:
| It seems like an ethical move if you agree with Peter Thiel's
| model of stagnant US. Since we don't grow anymore, the only way
| for advancement is for others to step aside. We're not creating
| new spots from expansion like in the 50s. So taking up high
| earning spots to accumulate above self sustaining amount is
| taking jobs from others that haven't reached their FIRE number
| (which could be seen as unethical). This doesn't apply to
| new/growing fields like tech.
| hsnewman wrote:
| I retired 1 month prior to Covid, road it out and then moved to a
| new city across the country. I've been busy mostly every day,
| have lost 25 lbs, and have never looked back at having a full
| time job. My philosophy is: set goals and you will exceed them.
| fallingfrog wrote:
| I would fill 110% of every day with meaningful activity if I
| didn't have a job.
| someelephant wrote:
| The issue a lot of that activity is acutely meaningful because
| you lack time now.
| [deleted]
| dqpb wrote:
| There is a third option besides working for somebody else and not
| working at all - that is, working for yourself.
| heurist wrote:
| My dream replacement for full time work: study and make art (a
| hobby I have plateaued in); exercise; become a better software
| developer and data analyst (I'm a manager these days); work part
| time (very part time) on a couple businesses I am involved with -
| mostly in creative R&D. I've recently become aware of an "elite"
| engineering firm that looks far into the future to build original
| and innovative technologies for clients - I would focus
| similarly.
| xor99 wrote:
| Similar ideas explored here: http://earlyretirementextreme.com/
| kebman wrote:
| "What will you do with your time?"
|
| How many of you really have a problem answering that? Am I the
| only lucky one who's got a gazillion projects I want to finish
| all at once???
| LesZedCB wrote:
| if you got more than four paragraphs down you would read
|
| > If you are one of these people, congratulations. You've
| already got the answers you need. Although you may be retiring
| FROM something, you're also very clear on what you're retiring
| TO. You can stop reading right now.
| mwidell wrote:
| I think it helped me a lot to "practice" by living on nothing but
| saved money for 6-12 month periods a couple of times earlier in
| life. I always found myself very happy and with plenty of
| exciting things to do during these periods, so when I finally
| left the rat race for real I knew exactly how I wanted to
| structure my life.
| agumonkey wrote:
| I have a hard time recalling two jobs that were worth doing for
| society the way they were done. The natural order of closed-door
| companies creates a distortion where almost nothing is done
| properly to ensure high efficiency and happiness [0].
|
| It's always a blend of:
|
| - bad or absent hierarchy: bosses that never come down, that have
| no idea what's going on or the way things are done, that mostly
| only talk to you to send back more stats (on paper, with stick
| marks, no one will setup a shared spreadsheet to at least avoid
| pencil accounting every week)
|
| - absurd lack of material support (you need a table god damn wood
| tablet extension for your desk... hell no, it's 2020, come back
| when alien technology landed on earth) no-one hired to fix stuff,
| even in large offices, absurd stuff breaks, people only complain
|
| - incredibly bad division of labour: no training (people struggle
| with every tool interaction), no notion of efficiency (let's
| rewrite everything on another post it or file, with new doc IDs),
| desk/office structure is obsolete to the bone, the amount of
| paper flying between rooms is astonishing. imagine doing
| databases by moving db rows to another computer and waiting to
| reintegrate it back when (if) it comes back. For that reason only
| I do more to avoid justice problems because I don't want my life
| hanging in the hands of a bored-out secretary that forgot who
| took my file to where.
|
| - causing as bad human interactions: people don't understand
| shit, they walk on eggs, nothing has value to them, everyone is
| slightly adversary and will reject blame at the slighest
| possibility of an issue. Of course one can end up in a good-
| minded team where people are chill and communicate nicely and
| work together .. but it seems a low prob event.
|
| coming from computing, I cannot help but to see things as
| processing steps.. and the amount of work in most jobs is
| minuscule now that everything is digital. Computers / clusters
| are mostly waiting for sad humans to press the button. I kinda
| ballparked that my last company (retail store) entire operation
| could fit on a single machine (granted people stopped duplicating
| excel files with bad content causing them to all be over 3MB for
| instance) and a few programs (in terms of computation there was
| nothing going on, a few figures updated here and there, gameboy
| level arithmetics.
|
| when the world is gonna shift to humanless operations it's gonna
| be a cold day
|
| [0] not talking about ping pong tables and cloud shape cushions,
| more like having good ergonomics, good interactions with
| coworkers, and more importantly good understanding of the process
| and value of what you're doing.
|
| ps: I said "two jobs" because, at least for minds like mine, food
| production (or similar very linear, production-chain like ops)
| felt like a job. You had to prep 100 tunafish sandwhich, someone
| showed you the right way to perform, it was clean and fast, then
| you sell, then you clean. It's almost lubricated.. you sweat but
| there's no drag, no confusion, no hidden state.. very zen in a
| way.
| nabbed wrote:
| After growing tired of modern software development practices a
| few years ago, I just quit my job. I had no plan on going back to
| work (although I did after 18 months), and I had no plan on what
| I was going to do other than improve my math skills (which I did
| to some small degree) and learn to touch type (which I did not
| do).
|
| What I really learned is that my digestion problems and benign
| heart rhythm issues got a lot better during this period. I also
| just enjoyed parking my car in various locations within 20-40
| minutes of my home and just reading, or studying, or listening to
| music.
| sweetheart wrote:
| > benign heart rhythm issues
|
| Hey, I have these, and don't know anyone else who does. Could
| you tell me more? Email is in my profile, if you prefer.
| oftenwrong wrote:
| >After growing tired of modern software development practices
|
| I'm curious to know what practices pushed you over the edge.
|
| I sometimes struggle to keep emotional distance from work,
| especially when I feel that others are making our collective
| effort less effective. I have to remind myself sometimes that I
| don't actually need to care. At the same time, I wonder if I
| would be happier starting my own thing, and calling the shots.
| Of course, then I would have to care.
| giantg2 wrote:
| If it's difficult to envision yourself without work, then you
| probably put too much of your identity into your work. Maybe
| that's not a bad thing if you truly love your job, but for most
| of us that is a huge mistake.
|
| Finding passions outside of work and approaching ideas as a child
| would is the simplest way to phrase the solution. As a child
| everything is new and exciting, it's easy to entertain yourself
| (quite cheaply too), there is less aversion to doing new things
| than someone who has spent decades being conditioned via a
| familiar and habitual routine.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Ah, I can do this too:
|
| If it's easy to envision yourself without work (or a passionate
| constructive hobby like art or writing), you're probably not a
| very interesting person.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| double0jimb0 wrote:
| A thing the FIRE community misses:
|
| The felt sense of Agency is VERY different between a) still
| making some income, feeling like your hand is still somewhat on
| the wheel and b) sitting in the back seat, with nothing to do but
| continually recalculating if / how long your nest egg will last
| (this quickly turns pathological)
|
| I believe the slow build up of stress in B) is unmitigable
| (probably goes against our species' DNA). Doubly so if you've
| attached lots of self-worth to making B) happen.
|
| And if the author reads this comment: you need to get over
| yourself if you want to become a 'writer', I don't know if there
| is an equivalent term for aspiring writers, but you are firmly in
| the equivalent "wantreprenuer" category. Be bold, fail, then
| learn, then fail some more. Don't surround yourself with other
| wantreprenuers and blame them. Suck it up buttercup.
| neogodless wrote:
| > A thing the FIRE community misses
|
| Do they? I mean, no doubt individuals might miss this. I don't
| think "the community" misses this. Lots of people are very
| aware of how agency plays into life satisfaction. In fact,
| being compelled to work for someone and do what their boss
| tells them to do severely impedes their agency.
|
| And a lot of post-FIRE reports are that money is much less of a
| concern than it ever was while working. Because once you are
| completely behind the wheel of your life, you often find work
| you really enjoy, that also happens to add some extra money to
| that nest egg. Most reports I've read indicate that money has
| actually grown while they were "retired." Even LivingAFi
| reports this:
|
| > I still have an amazing stash of money. I mean, I was able to
| take close to five straight years off work and _still have more
| than I started with, inflation-adjusted_
|
| He later explains going back to work in more detail:
|
| > My fiance is a librarian and she doesn't make a ton of money.
| This drastically changes the early-retirement numbers for the
| two of us.
|
| > Anyway -- bottom line is that my own asset sheet funds the
| lion's share of our future together.
|
| > Additionally, I'm spending more than that 30K/yr I had
| estimated back in 2015. I'm at 40K now and we'll be at 55K
| together I think, once we consolidate assets and buy a home.
| mitjak wrote:
| > sitting in the back seat, with nothing to do but continually
| recalculating if / how long your nest egg will last
|
| this problem doesn't exist if you correctly math out your
| existence to guarantee survival. having the ability to choose
| how to spend your time is the definition of agency.
| lastgeniusua wrote:
| it's called communism
| disintegore wrote:
| I am immediately reminded of the Soviet union's full employment
| policy, and the absurd jobs they had to invent in order to
| fulfill it. As a matter of fact they regarded a _lack of
| unemployment_ as a clear indicator of the superiority of
| socialism over capitalism.
|
| More on this : https://nintil.com/the-soviet-union-achieving-
| full-employmen...
|
| With that said, I expected an article on post-work society. I'm
| a little bit disappointed.
| Koshkin wrote:
| Except that, theoretically, "communism" is different from
| "socialism", and, indeed, in a communist society one could
| choose not to do anything "useful" (since no one has to work
| for a living).
| disintegore wrote:
| I don't believe the Leninist notion of communism
| incorporated the idea of "not working for a living" either,
| but I could be wrong.
| mmcdermott wrote:
| The root difference between communism and capitalism
| comes down to their respective views of human nature.
| Communism views human as fundamentally decent but are
| made lower by the exploitation of those with capital and
| power. Capitalism, on the other hand, views human beings
| as lacking this decent base and presupposes that they
| will not produce things of mutual benefit without
| motivation.
|
| The critique of communism that people will not work for a
| living isn't so much based on the ideas in communism
| itself (which devoted a lot of propaganda to the noble
| farmer and mechanic) but on what the net result of the
| policy of equal distribution would cause.
|
| Someone who believes in capitalism necessarily believes
| that a communist system removes the incentive to work.
| disintegore wrote:
| That would imply that the individual in question cannot
| imagine any incentive to work other than the profit
| motive, which in my eyes is not only an extremely
| depressing notion to contemplate, but also one that falls
| apart _very_ rapidly if you consider that human society
| predates capitalism by thousands of years, and that even
| within capitalist society itself there are countless
| examples of the opposite.
| mmcdermott wrote:
| I don't think capitalism assumes profit to be the sole
| motivation for activity, just that it is the only one
| that works well for creating cooperation in the large.
| Almost anyone, regardless of belief system, practices or
| can conceive of hobbies that are done for the intrinsic
| enjoyment of the thing. Some hobbies produce goods or
| services (building models or playing music) but some may
| not (reading).
|
| What lies at the heart of any economic system is the
| division of labor as a multiplier of wealth. A hunter-
| gatherer requires neither communism nor capitalism to
| motivate if failure to hunt/gather results in starvation.
| An individual's motivation need not go farther than that.
| Once you start dividing labor, you also need a way to
| incentivize people to pick the right labor.
|
| Communism supposes that people will continue to pick
| valuable jobs (here defined as ones that generate goods
| and services for the collective) of their own accord.
| Capitalism says that profit & loss will sort out who is
| doing what is deemed beneficial by others.
|
| This, if true, does imply something about human nature
| and not necessarily something good. That doesn't make it
| more or less true.
| Koshkin wrote:
| This is simply a consequence of all goods being available
| to anyone free of charge.
| disintegore wrote:
| Goods which, presumably, appear into existence through
| pure magic.
| Koshkin wrote:
| One of the tenets of the theory of the communist society
| is that most people would choose to work (a few hours a
| day).
| huragok wrote:
| Small-c communism the theory and large-C Communism the
| Marxist-Leninist tendency.
| locallost wrote:
| My plan is to at least take the next year off to think things
| through. I don't have nearly enough money for an early
| retirement, so this will have to be it for now.
|
| But anyway, an interesting thing happened. I am in talks to buy a
| small cheap piece of land that needs a lot of work. And suddenly
| I had all these ideas of what I could do there once I clean it
| up. Not only gardening again, but hobbies, learning new things
| etc. Basically all the things I want to do now, of which I just
| occasionally get to some of them, but am otherwise to drained to
| really get to it. So it's not about not working, it's not about
| not doing anything, I think I would die if it was like that. It's
| about doing something meaningful or at least something I don't
| feel is 60% BS.
| LesZedCB wrote:
| i want freedom from starving to death and exposure, while having
| freedom to do whatever sounds interesting or meaningful, or just
| relax that day.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| I saw "FIRE" in several comments, had to look it up:
|
| > "Financial Independence, Retire Early (FIRE) Definition
|
| https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/financial-independence-...
|
| Followers of FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) plan to
| retire before the traditional retirement age of 65 by dedicating
| up to 70% of income to savings while still in the workforce."
| BayAreaEscapee wrote:
| I did it: I retired at age 40 with a net worth of about $5M. That
| was eight years ago. I diversified most of it, but I made two
| concentrated bets with a fraction and both of them were home
| runs. Now I'm above $5M. I have enough money to do whatever I
| want and my withdrawal rate is less than 1% annually. (I don't
| have expensive or flasy taste.)
|
| One of the things that I didn't expect (but that this article and
| some other sources hint at) is that I would fall into a trap of
| consuming a lot of alcohol. I recognized my problem and dealt
| with it. Now almost every day is alcohol-free, and I only drink
| when with other people who are also drinking. (For anyone
| struggling with a drinking problem, I urge you to try something
| called the Sinclair Method, which involves taking naltrexone or
| nalmefene. [1][2])
|
| I don't really have much of a fixed address and spend 95% of my
| time abroad. I usually like to stay in a place for several months
| or more at a time. This sometimes involves long-term visas.
| Throwing money at immigration attorneys will solve a lot of those
| kinds of problems. Many countries have visa programs for self-
| employed or self-sufficient people. If not, you can always enroll
| in a language program and get a student visa to study the
| language of your host country.
|
| I also spend several months a year just traveling around to new
| places and visiting old friends.
|
| I enjoy my life. Sometimes at moments I miss my job in Silicon
| Valley. Then I realize how much grief and pressure it was, and
| I'm thankful for the life I have.
|
| At this article's author states: you have to know what you are
| going to fill your life with once you leave the working world. If
| you don't fill it with something positive, negative things will
| fill in.
|
| [1] https://www.amazon.com/Cure-Alcoholism-Medically-
| Eliminate-A... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EghiY_s2ts
| qntty wrote:
| How did you acquire the initial $5M? Sell a start-up? Lucky
| investment? Or did you have a high salary?
| BayAreaEscapee wrote:
| I had employee stock options in two companies that had a high
| growth rate. I lived very simply and saved more than half my
| take-home pay. I did have a high salary.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| _> It's been a lifelong dream of mine to quit my current career
| and take something lower paying and more meaningful: teaching or
| contributing to a non-profit._
|
| That's me. I'm working for free, and happier n' a pig in poop.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| This is one of the biggest missing pieces in internet FIRE
| discussions. So much of the FIRE discourse is about not working
| that many don't realize that they're going to be extremely bored
| with 16 hours to fill every day. Worse, their friends are all
| busy with their lives.
|
| It's actually a common failure point of FIRE post-mittens that
| didn't work out. Especially with couples, where it's more likely
| that at least one person will realize that maybe jobs, and the
| sense of purpose and social life that comes with them, aren't so
| bad.
|
| The other big issue is that people underestimate their spending
| in a post-work FIRE lifestyle. It's tempting to subtract out
| costs like commuting and work clothes and assume your costs will
| go down. In practice, if you plan on traveling and spending more
| time on hobbies your costs are likely to go up.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Got to admit that watching people struggle with the question of
| what to do without a job to fill their time is just completely
| wild to me. It is difficult for me to imagine someone who has
| so little they want to do outside of work that they can't
| easily find ways to fill up the 8+ hours a day their job takes
| from them. I have a list of things I'd like to do a mile long
| that I know I'll never actually find time to do because I've
| prioritized other shit I want to do.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > It is difficult for me to imagine someone who has so little
| they want to do outside of work that they can't easily find
| ways to fill up the 8+ hours a day their job takes from them
|
| It's not that simple. I felt the same way before I crossed
| the FIRE threshold and took some time off (mini-FIRE, I
| guess).
|
| It turns out, most of the things I had been putting off
| weren't as time consuming as I thought. I found myself
| regretting not doing many of them sooner, such as putting a
| few hours in on weekdays and weekends or scheduling a 1-week
| vacation to make a trip happen.
|
| It's hard to truly understand until you've crossed the
| threshold and tried it, but there's a certain aspect of FIRE
| discussions that divides life too much into pre-retirement
| and post-retirement activities in a way that isn't always
| necessary. In retrospect, there was little stopping me from
| doing most of the things I wanted to do while I was working,
| and plenty of people do manage to accomplish a balance of
| work and other things just fine.
|
| I'm not alone in this. Even the author of this blog later
| returned to work after his interest in his writing hobby
| slowed to a crawl, his friendships started dwindling, and his
| relationship came to an end at least in part due to the FIRE
| lifestyle: https://livingafi.com/2021/03/17/the-2021-early-
| retirement-u...
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| I think there might be a component here of people able to
| reasonably achieve FIRE level wealth are already
| predisposed towards functioning well in the work place, and
| therefore maybe not so well suited for a life outside of
| that institution.
|
| When I say I have projects I know I'll never do, I'm
| talking about the kinds of things that range from "will
| probably take several years" to "might not be completable
| in the lifetime I have remaining". Even if each of those
| things takes an eighth of the time I think they will, I
| still easily have enough to fill up the rest of my life
| even if I never do anything purely for the enjoyment of it.
| driverdan wrote:
| > It's not that simple.
|
| It is. I took about 18 months off a few years ago. It was
| great until I ran out of money.
|
| My main motivator was a very big project (converting a bus
| to live in) that took a lot of time but after that was done
| I still did lots of other projects, played video games, and
| traveled.
|
| In some ways I missed contributing my skills to a team but,
| other than needing money, I wasn't strongly motivated to go
| back to work.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > It is. I took about 18 months off a few years ago. It
| was great until I ran out of money.
|
| I also took a lot of time off, albeit after crossing the
| threshold of FIRE. My comment was coming from a position
| of someone who has achieved FIRE.
| driverdan wrote:
| How much time did you take off?
|
| I have more projects than I would have time if I FIREd. I
| think the main thing is you have to be some form of
| maker, you can't be just a consumer.
|
| I have so many things I want to build (eg my next vehicle
| conversion) and a lot of software projects. Then there's
| the list of things I'd like to learn and places I want to
| visit.
|
| When my dad retired he actually got busier than when he
| worked full time. He literally has enough projects to
| last the rest of his life.
| luffapi wrote:
| Exactly I have so many hobbies, social opportunities, home
| improvement projects, chores... that get neglected because
| the bulk of my time and energy goes to work.
|
| I've saved enough to have multiple year breaks in my career
| and not once was I at a loss for something to do. Quite the
| opposite, it was apparent exactly how much of my life was
| being wasted on goals I found uninteresting (at best), all in
| the name of not starving to death or living on the street.
| alisonatwork wrote:
| It's truly astonishing how many people apparently have a
| psychological need to be occupied with work in order to find
| meaning from their life. I can think of nothing better than
| to finally never have to worry about working just to cover my
| rent and food.
|
| Being in tech, I've had the privilege to be able to quit my
| job every few years and take extended sabbaticals. Without
| fail those breaks have been the best times of my life. Even
| when I just spent the time "doing nothing" from the point of
| view of an outsider - not taking up a new hobby, not working
| on any personal projects, not operating a side-hustle, just
| sitting around watching the world go by... it was fine. It
| was better than fine - it was great. It seems bizarre to me
| that anyone would prefer structured labor to that kind of
| freedom, but it turns out some people do.
|
| I just wish we had a society that would allow for both types
| of people to have the life they want.
| handrous wrote:
| I don't think most people, except maybe in the EU,
| experience enough time-off to ever feel what it's _like_ to
| not be working, and also not be trying to work. Weekends
| and evenings are barely enough--if they are at all--to
| catch up with chores and such that accumulated during
| working hours (that is, unpaid work). Most folks have a
| couple weeks of vacation, which will tend to be eaten up
| finally fixing the fence or that dripping faucet or else
| frantically trying to do some Big Thing (usually some kind
| of trip) because actual time off is so rare that you don 't
| want to "waste it".
|
| Most people don't get any useful amount of _actual_ free
| time until they retire. No wonder so many are lost when
| they do. They 've had _no_ practice at it, and have had all
| their time-requiring interests beaten out of them over
| decades of the work-week utterly dominating the rhythms of
| their life.
| the_only_law wrote:
| > It is difficult for me to imagine someone who has so little
| they want to do outside of work that they can't easily find
| ways to fill up the 8+ hours a day their job takes from them.
|
| There are so many things I like to do or would love to do if
| I didn't ha RTP work, but I doubt it would be maintainable in
| the sort of withdraws I see early FIRE people talk about
| taking. I often have problems figuring out how to afford my
| hobbies while working.
| CleverLikeAnOx wrote:
| I am in the same boat. I am 6 months into FIRE, and the list
| of things to do is growing, not shrinking.
|
| However, I would say that some things on the list turn out to
| be false. That is, I like the idea of doing them, but not
| enough to _actually_ do it. So do account for some of your
| post FIRE ideas turning out to be just daydreams you aren 't
| actually committed to.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Not something I really have to worry about since, unless I
| find out I have a fatal disease, FIRE is not a realistic
| possibility for me.
| Frost1x wrote:
| The whole deeply-seated protestant belief that work ethic
| instills value in life always escapes me as well. There are
| _so many things_ I 'd love to do that don't even require a
| lot of financial resources or resources in general to
| accomplish beyond time, but unfortunately, due to needs like
| having a home and food, I have to work quite a bit and just
| can't find the time to do these things in those gaps.
|
| I understand the bordem argument but I think that sort of
| boredom is socially conditioned on us. During my time at
| university I worked almost constantly. I remember after
| graduating and getting a job only working 8-hours a day, I
| suddenly found myself with excess fee time I didn't know what
| to do with. I distinctively remember my first day returning
| from work, that I got home and was lost: what do I want to do
| (not what do I _need_ to do or _should_ do)? I have no papers
| or assignments due tomorrow. No major project efforts weeks
| behind I 'm trying to catch up on, no looming deadlines, no
| new tech I need to learn to be ready for the next job, etc.
|
| I came to the realization that I was bored and didn't know
| what to do because I was conditioned to be constantly busy
| working, largely _for other people_ and not myself --from my
| parents, church, schooling, society, and so on. A goal can be
| for yourself but often the processes to attain said goals are
| for other people. I _chose_ to do certain aspects because
| they were interesting but it was more so because I _needed
| to_ , _had to_ or _should do_ to get to my goal.
|
| I believe most people don't need work to find value in life,
| they need the time to discover what it is they value, the
| basic resources to pursue it, and ability to live decently
| while doing it. Unfortunately, we have an economic system
| that doesn't really allow for that. There is some choice in
| our economic system but for many, that choice is an illusion
| or at best, heavily constrained.
|
| I believe we need to move away from this work tied to life
| value concept, but I believe too many people currently rely
| on exploiting this concept to have others create value for
| themselves while constantly selling the idea of work giving
| purpose in life so they can pursue their goals without
| working. The issue isn't that work exists and is needed to
| maintain certain structure to society, it's more that it's
| used as shackles on many.
| SCNP wrote:
| To add to this, since the work I do at my job aligns very
| closely to my hobbies, I find that work saps my interest in
| putting time into said hobbies. If I were able to spend the
| entirety of my mental capacity on things I _want_ to do, I
| might do more. Who is to say. As a counterpoint, work can
| offer opportunities to work with technologies or concepts you
| might not think of or be able to afford while working on a
| personal project.
| nend wrote:
| It's a completely wild thought to most people. It's one of
| the reasons why so many people end up struggling with it.
| "That won't happen to me, no need to make a plan for how to
| avoid it or make a plan for what to do if it happens, because
| it's not going to happen."
|
| Obviously not everyone has problems filling their time. But
| for most people it's difficult to imagine what it'd take to
| fill years worth of free time, when they've never experienced
| anything close to having to do that.
| Koshkin wrote:
| > _extremely bored_
|
| Not if you have a hobby (or hobbies) or have an interest in
| working in art or science or math or with computers... (Did I
| just say "working"?)
| fnord77 wrote:
| I would think the most common failure point of FIRE would be
| the financial independence part.
| herbst wrote:
| What I don't get about fire is that I want to enjoy my life
| equally now and when I am old. I have no issues filling time
| without getting bored, but I don't feel like wasting any time
| of my current life in a job I don't really enjoy just so I may
| enjoy life more later?
|
| However I also believe that fire is a symptom and not a
| solution. It seems to be mostly popular in countries with
| little or non existent pension security.
| handrous wrote:
| > However I also believe that fire is a symptom and not a
| solution. It seems to be mostly popular in countries with
| little or non existent pension security.
|
| In the US, it's also largely a fantasy thanks to our
| uniquely-shitty healthcare system, unless you're _actually_
| rich. Most of the frugal-FIRE schemes will fall apart as soon
| as someone in your family gets sick.
| neogodless wrote:
| I will not be bored when I am not compelled to work.
|
| I was unemployed for six months during the pandemic. Boy did I
| fail to be bored! I overhauled my garage, building a French
| cleat system and organizing all of my tools. I built a
| movie/reading nook for my spouse, with a sliding bookshelf
| door. I caught up on cutting and splitting firewood for winter.
| I played board games, cooked, baked, rode bike almost every
| day, sat in the cool breeze overlooking nature, sat by the fire
| pit and boy, was I not bored.
|
| I also spent a lot less on clothes and commuting...
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > I overhauled my garage, building a French cleat system and
| organizing all of my tools. I built a movie/reading nook for
| my spouse, with a sliding bookshelf door. I caught up on
| cutting and splitting firewood for winter. I played board
| games, cooked, baked, rode bike almost every day, sat in the
| cool breeze overlooking nature, sat by the fire pit and boy,
| was I not bored.
|
| Your post looks a lot like what I did along side a 40 hour
| per week job before I reached FIRE. Sure, I couldn't do it as
| quickly but it's not as though having a job is mutually
| exclusive with riding a bike every day or overhauling the
| garage on weekends.
|
| One of the biggest things I learned post-FIRE was that doing
| the things I enjoy wasn't as difficult as I had come to think
| while I was employed. There's something about FIRE blogs that
| makes it easy to think of activities as pre-FIRE (work) and
| post-FIRE (fun).
|
| Instead, I'd rather work on balance. Find jobs where 40 hours
| per week is average and I don't have to waste time on
| commuting. Then make time in the evenings and weekends to do
| things I enjoy.
| neogodless wrote:
| It's technically true, but also hard to do in reality.
|
| Right now, I barely have time to make coffee before my
| first meeting. My energy levels after sitting at the
| computer for 8+ hours are not great. The moments where the
| weather is "just right" for a lot of activities are
| severely hampered by the time I must be by the computer.
|
| I know, because I'm way behind on firewood again. There are
| some mornings where the weather would be OK for it, but
| they usually don't fall on Saturday for some reason. Or we
| have plans to go on a camping trip that Saturday, so again
| I skip that task.
|
| This adds up for each instance of those things. (I've seen
| it take weeks to build something simple... while unemployed
| I took on much bigger projects over much shorter time
| frames.)
|
| Sure, I agree that _during your working career_ seek out
| jobs that don 't overly impede your autonomy. But if you
| can wipe out 40 hours every week that is doing so, suddenly
| you have much more freedom.
|
| With that freedom, you spend each day, all day, choosing
| among the things you want to be doing. While working, it's
| much harder to take a couple of hours in the evening or
| your precious weekends, and splitting them up into all the
| things you want to do, and many of them get left behind.
| senko wrote:
| > This is one of the biggest missing pieces in internet FIRE
| discussions.
|
| Interesting. Most of discussions I've seen explicitly deal with
| this, it's probably no2 topic (first being status updates).
|
| And the advice given usually boils down to "don't run away from
| work, run TOWARDS something", which is perfectly sensible.
| jjk166 wrote:
| Hobbies, travel, volunteering, education, projects, consulting
| - there are a lot of ways to spend your time when you don't
| need to worry about money for survival. Hell even if you keep
| working your current job, the knowledge that you don't have to
| and that you can walk away at any time is extremely liberating.
| I enjoy what I do, and I'll keep on doing it in some capacity
| long after I retire, but the "in some capacity" is really key.
| OJFord wrote:
| > So much of the FIRE discourse is about not working that many
| don't realize that they're going to be extremely bored with 16
| hours to fill every day.
|
| People are different, I suppose. Perhaps not in FIRE circles
| but this is certainly discussed regarding 'normal' retirement,
| and I don't feel the same way at all. I'm in my twenties, and
| honestly think I could fill the rest of my life more than once
| with non-work. Especially if I'm allowed to get paid for doing
| what I consider to be hobbies rather than work as part of that.
| At least one of those lifetimes could just be reading!
|
| Do you really find yourself reaching the end of a weekend and
| thinking Oh thank God I have work tomorrow, I'm so bored?
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > Do you really find yourself reaching the end of a weekend
| and thinking Oh thank God I have work tomorrow, I'm so bored?
|
| The comment above you is channeling the common need to say
| anything, no matter what it is, in response to an attack on
| tradition. This is why people in Oregon hear about a proposal
| to make pumping your own gas legal and respond "but what if
| somebody doesn't know how?", as if it were difficult to know
| what would happen in that case.
| OJFord wrote:
| I realise this is a tangent, but what is 'pumping your own
| gas'? (And if not clear from that answer, why do people in
| Oregon specifically object? Not from the US.)
| UnFleshedOne wrote:
| I think that's literally about putting the gas line into
| your tank and pressing the trigger...
| neogodless wrote:
| In the United States, most adults outside dense (or well-
| planned) cities own their own gas (petrol) powered
| vehicle. In most places, you go to a gas (petrol) station
| to refill the tank. In some states, it's illegal (for
| liability reasons) to do this refilling yourself. An
| attendant has to come around, collect payment, and refill
| the tank for you.
| OJFord wrote:
| Oh! I see, thank you. I was thinking if it's something
| like methane harvesting like the moped art project on the
| front page, why would that be Oregon-specific, ha.
|
| Here in the UK (we don't call it gas, so that threw me
| off, and) _not_ 'pumping your own' is unheard of -
| payment either self serve at the pump (in the last ~15y
| anyway, since 'chip & PIN' I suppose), or inside.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > Here in the UK (we don't call it gas, so that threw me
| off, and) not 'pumping your own' is unheard of - payment
| either self serve at the pump (in the last ~15y anyway,
| since 'chip & PIN' I suppose), or inside.
|
| This is also true almost everywhere in the US. Except
| that we do call it gas. (The word is not directly related
| to "gas", the phase of matter; it's short for "gasoline",
| which appears to have originated as a brand name.)
|
| The fact that pumping your own is legal everywhere
| without any problems doesn't prevent people in Oregon
| from forecasting dire calamities if the law of Oregon
| were to change.
| rpeden wrote:
| Pumping your item gas just means putting fuel in your
| vehicle yourself instead of letting an attendant do it
| for you. You're not allowed to do it yourself in Oregon
| and New Jersey (with, I believe, some exceptions to
| ensure people can still acquire fuel in circumstances
| where it's unreasonable or impossible to have an employee
| to do it for you.)
| kingaillas wrote:
| All the gas stations in OR are full-service, that is, an
| employee of the gas station will fill your gas tank for
| you.
| benrbray wrote:
| Agreed. To me, FIRE would mean the freedom to spend every day
| working on problems I think are important and learning stuff
| that I think is interesting, whether or not a company agrees
| with me. All with the knowledge that I can stop working at
| noon or take a month off whenever I need to!
| ModernMech wrote:
| Sounds like you would enjoy academic life!
| CrazyStat wrote:
| Acadrmic like mostly just replaces the company deciding
| what's important with a grant funding agency.
| benrbray wrote:
| already tried that and it didn't go so well ;)
| decebalus1 wrote:
| > This is one of the biggest missing pieces in internet FIRE
| discussions. So much of the FIRE discourse is about not working
| that many don't realize that they're going to be extremely
| bored with 16 hours to fill every day. Worse, their friends are
| all busy with their lives.
|
| This is a frequent misunderstanding about early 'retirement'.
| It's not about not working at all. It's about not working for a
| living. Very important distinction. If tomorrow I'd acquire
| 'fuck you' money and not have to work, I will quit my job and
| finally start the book I've been planning for a while now,
| travel to my home country and build my genealogical tree,
| volunteer some of my time to the OCCRP or ACLU, etc.. It's not
| about not working. It's about working on the stuff I really do
| want to work on, without the threat of scarcity if I don't
| 'increase shareholder value'.
| solarengineer wrote:
| I regular realise that a lot of my bucket list items don't
| require money and I then go do them.
|
| I have also realised that there's no need to wait to write a
| book. I've procrastinated for many years and have finally got
| my act together and I'm writing one.
| decebalus1 wrote:
| Those are all fair points and people do write books or do
| stuff off their bucket list while being happily and
| gainfully employed.
|
| But people are different and not all jobs are the same.
| Some people don't have the time or energy [1]. Add the
| stress of supporting a family, a demanding boss and the
| fear of losing healthcare along with your job and you'll
| get to your bucket list either during the scarce vacation
| days or in your late 50s early 60s (if you're lucky).
|
| This is what FIRE's all about. It's about freedom
| basically. Money == freedom to do whatever you want to do
| without fear of losing the bottom of Maslow's pyramid. This
| is especially valuable in the US, where there is no social
| safety net.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoon_theory
| wccrawford wrote:
| For me, quitting work would probably not happen immediately
| after I get FU money, but it'd happen within that year, I
| bet.
|
| At first, I'd do a _lot_ more of my hobbies, but then I 'd
| probably move into finally making video games. I'd finally
| have the time to just sit and _play_ with it. Right now, I
| don 't feel like I have that kind of time, and getting more
| than 3 hours in a row is hard on weekends, and impossible on
| week days.
|
| It definitely isn't about not-working. It's about working on
| what I want to.
| icedchai wrote:
| Boredom is my own personal fear. I hit my FIRE number back in
| 2018. I was going to retire at N amount or age 45. I hit N
| pretty early, couldn't pull the trigger, a few more years
| passed by. Now I'm almost double N due to stock market / money
| printing inflation. This is approximately 50x my yearly
| expenses. Ideal situation is 2 to 3 days of work a week, with
| very few zoom meetings, scrums, or other bullshit.
| BoxOfRain wrote:
| >Ideal situation is 2 to 3 days of work a week, with very few
| zoom meetings, scrums, or other bullshit.
|
| Wouldn't it be nice if you could trade pay or hours for
| avoiding arseache like you can negotiate a salary? Like,
| "I'll take a 5% salary cut but I'll not be required to attend
| certain meetings" or "I'll work an extra _x_ hours a week for
| free but I 'll never have touch an Atlassian product ever
| again".
| thrtythreeforty wrote:
| Have you made motions toward your ideal situation? If not, is
| there anything that makes you hesitate toward making those
| changes?
|
| I ask because I see many people saying "couldn't pull the
| trigger" for a variety of reasons, and while I don't think I
| would have that issue, those people have also said that they
| didn't think they'd have that issue.
| clipradiowallet wrote:
| I hope I have this problem some day. Retirement seems a long,
| long, long way off. Feeling the rat race pretty intensely the
| last 5 years.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| I feel you. I don't know if it is the pandemic or I've just
| reached mid-life-crisis age, but I'm so ready to not be working
| that I'm considering just quitting right now and killing myself
| when the money eventually runs out.
| solarengineer wrote:
| I recently played out this scenario where I run out of money
| and then just end myself instead of begging. I concluded that
| I'm extremely likely to be doing something meaningful and
| would rather have the survival money. So that's what I'm
| focused on now - working on my bucket list, moving towards
| meaningful activities already and figuring out how much I'd
| need to becoming financially independent. The Bogleheads
| website has proven useful.
|
| Edit: My message for those who think that killing themselves
| might be a reasonable choice: There are those who wish for
| just that one extra day for meaningful work or to be with
| their loved ones. While not all may have loved ones, a person
| could find something meaningful to do. For those who like the
| Marvel movies, I think Tony Stark ended up doing rather well
| with the gift of life that he'd received in the first Iron
| Man movie. Another inspiring quote for me was from the Star
| Trek movie: "Your father was captain for a total of 20
| minutes. In those 20 minutes, he saved 800 lives. I dare you
| to do better".
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| > For those who like the Marvel movies, I think Tony Stark
| ended up doing rather well with the gift of life that he'd
| received in the first Iron Man movie.
|
| A fictional superhuman-level engineer may not be the best
| example you could use here.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| I think the point is that Stark wasn't shown having
| extensive personal friendships, family life, etc. - but
| he used what he did have (technical ability) to do
| meaningful work. Obviously, the scope of that work is
| fantastical, but what's the point of storytelling if we
| don't take inspiration from our characters?
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Well it's a lot easier to find meaningful work when one
| has superhuman abilities. Unlike many in our industry, I
| am not deluded enough to believe that my talents are
| particularly special. Further, since I'm not a
| billionaire like Stark, I have to find a job that I can
| support myself with foremost, which means meaningfulness
| takes a back seat. It is very unlikely I would be able to
| find both.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| I don't have any meaningful technical abilities, but I
| have a job that lets me help people, invest in their
| futures, and generally live my values. I only make about
| 45k at age 35 and will never FIRE. So it goes.
|
| Stark is not inspiring to _me_ - but I believe having
| inspirations is important. Why throw cold water on that
| because it doesn't resonate with _you_.
| Nemrod67 wrote:
| please don't kill yourself, there needs to be more people
| being fed up for things to move, not less :)
| [deleted]
| PicassoCTs wrote:
| The most drag on a life without work, is put by having to buy
| physical products, that are not useful, except for status display
| or decoration. This is why AR- done right would be such a game-
| changer.
|
| No more throw-away decoration bought at ikea. No more physical
| products like books, any stone with a small piece of cloth, could
| be a book.
|
| No more displays of status by buying advertised products -
| instead, status is what you create, growing out of your footsteps
| as you walk down a public street.
|
| If all those products fade to grey, lots of work will become
| unneeded. And we are almost there.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| The de-materialization of AR _could_ lead in the direction
| you're discussing, but almost certainly won't. The
| infrastructure is /will be developed by organizations that are
| explicitly a part of (and escalate) the material and status
| culture you deride. Some of these companies explicitly make
| their wealth based on advertising and will hardly give up those
| profit streams willingly when the shift to AR takes place. Most
| people are trapped playing other people's games, but the shift
| to AR won't solve that.
| granshaw wrote:
| Products are the least of most ppls worries. Family, housing,
| healthcare are way bigger costs
| k__ wrote:
| I did a sabbatical in 2014 and I had plenty of stuff to do.
|
| So much, in fact, that I couldn't imagine going back to work ever
| again.
|
| I couldn't imagine living polyamorous with more than two partners
| when working 40h a week. Let alone having some hobbies on the
| side...
| ModernMech wrote:
| work - noun - activity involving mental or physical effort done
| in order to achieve a purpose or result.
|
| This article conflates "working for a living" and "work". In our
| society, we don't seem to consider work outside of employment by
| a corporation to be actual work. But activities like child care,
| elder care, household maintenance, community volunteering,
| pursuing an education, creation of art are all examples of unpaid
| work that we do every day that are important to society. Even
| open source coding for free is work. If you don't have to work
| for a living, there's still a lot of work to be done.
|
| The flip side to this is, as a society, we should probably start
| paying for all the unpaid societal work people do for free. IMO
| this is the best argument for something like UBI.
| tomrod wrote:
| There is a term for this kind of work: cottage industry.
|
| My understanding is that it isn't captured by most standard
| economic measures, like GDP.
| michalf6 wrote:
| Society which values work will outcompete the one which does not.
| You and people around you aren't the only ones on this planet,
| there are highly motivated people elsewhere who will gladly put
| in effort to take your place.
| ElViajero wrote:
| > who will gladly put in effort to take your place.
|
| That sounds completely alien to my experience. I go on vacation
| around 2 months a year. I work only the stipulated hours. And I
| have a great job, with great conditions, working with amazing
| people, learning things and having fun.
|
| This kind of mindset and approach to life gives me a peace of
| mind that allows me to have meaningful discussions, to mediate
| in disagreements and to not be too invested so I can easily
| adapt to new circumstances. Working "harder" just creates a
| tunnel vision, maybe is ok if your job is to sit in a chair and
| do nothing. But for any job that requires mind or body to be in
| shape, you need vacations and take it easy to perform at top
| capacity.
|
| On the other side if it really as you say and everything is
| about competition, then investing so much in just your job is
| going to make you lose at the rest of non-work competitions in
| live. But, I do not think that this is true.
| mitjak wrote:
| why should we compete? what does "victory" amount to? i'd
| gladly give up winning in favour of some form of survival
| guarantee and freedom to choose work rather than require it for
| survival.
| dimnsionofsound wrote:
| Outcompete in what sense? Certainly more working can lead to
| more of something, but I'm not sure we all agree on what that
| something is, and whether or not all of it is valuable (or even
| whether a significant amount is something to avoid).
| [deleted]
| benhurmarcel wrote:
| > Society which values work will outcompete the one which does
| not.
|
| Why should one care about helping one "society" at the expense
| of another?
|
| > there are highly motivated people elsewhere who will gladly
| put in effort to take your place
|
| If I already have enough to be happy they're welcome to do so.
| dade_ wrote:
| Critical illness insurance because everyone has a plan until they
| are punched in the face.
| vessenes wrote:
| I find the FIRE folks very interesting. If you read the followup
| post at https://livingafi.com/2021/03/17/the-2021-early-
| retirement-u... you will find out that this lifestyle isn't for
| everyone, or for everyone's partners.
|
| One thing I think the FIRE folks can miss is the sense of worth,
| improvement in personal power and confidence that comes from
| struggling. Struggling could be making things, building a
| business, learning job skills, writing a novel, whatever.
| However, 5 years of just 'I checked my investments, I'm in within
| 1% of nominal, I guess I should feel no stress right now!'
| shouldn't be the end; many people interested in this lifestyle
| seem to feel like they have arrived when they can do that. As a
| launch point, it has its benefits. But to my mind, it shouldn't
| ever be thought of as a goal in itself.
|
| I read the follow up post as a sort of tacit admission that the
| FIRE lifestyle can lead to this huge gap in personal development,
| and often during really key years for relationship and brain
| development, 30s and 40s are super prime years for learning and
| applying learning. It seems like a terrible waste to spend it
| sitting on one's metaphorical porch, sipping tea.
| GavinMcG wrote:
| I agree. The author blamed his former partner's unhappiness--in
| her own words, a feeling like they weren't "going anywhere,"
| like there was no "forward progress," like there was no longer
| a "sense of momentum"--the author chalks all this up to a
| "pressure to keep up with the mythical Joneses" and to the idea
| that she is simply "wired to be _like everyone else_. "
|
| It takes him a year and a half to realize that _maybe goals and
| purpose matter_ : "without my former partner, I became
| depressed and anxious and again struggled with one of the great
| questions that terrorizes us all: Purpose."
| GavinMcG wrote:
| As a side note: I think the author probably is still getting
| it wrong on a certain level. He concludes that "[t]he most
| important cog in the machinery of my personal happiness
| turned out to be a simple one: Having a wonderful partner."
| This exemplifies an unhealthy relationship with boundaries
| and a disposition toward codependency.
|
| To be fair, he also acknowledges that "money doesn't make you
| happy. People do. Connections and relationships do. Purpose
| helps, too." Those are all true. But going so far as to make
| someone else "the most important cog" is problematic, as the
| author had a chance to learn. Making someone else responsible
| for your personal happiness puts an enormous amount of
| pressure on them, and infidelity is a predictable (though
| morally wrong) reaction to a relationship of dependency.
|
| The author still doesn't "get it" looking back: his "one
| regret" is that he "didn't take [his] partner's initial
| unhappiness more seriously." But he describes how seriously
| he _did_ take it: "I encouraged her to explore her own life
| and find activities and goals that would help her feel
| better. I suggested therapy and offered to go with her. I was
| clear that if she wanted to go back to work I was eager to
| support her in this. I wanted her to do anything that might
| help."
|
| He concludes: "my suggestions and support weren't enough -- I
| never could figure out what she wanted or how I could help."
| But this is just more of the same problematic dynamic re:
| boundaries. It wasn't his job to fix his partner or to make
| her happy any more than it's fair to make the other person
| responsible for his own happiness.
|
| On the other hand, he's currently "not so much worried about
| a life without work as I am a life without meaning or purpose
| or love" and making those "exist in harmony, and without a
| ton of financial stress." And that's about all any of us can
| hope for. I hope he stays focused on finding meaning (outside
| having a particular person feel positively about him!) for
| the long haul.
| Vixel wrote:
| I haven't had a job in nine months now and between waking up
| whenever I want to and finally trying the things I've always had
| in my head to make a little money here and there, I don't know
| how I would go back to a regular job. Sure on paper I make about
| half of what I used to make, But damn my stress level is low and
| days are nice
| zamfi wrote:
| One thing we've lost in the transition to two-earner families
| with the expectation that everyone has a career is exactly what's
| coming up in this thread:
|
| 1) People derive a lot of meaning from their interactions with
| other people.
|
| 2) For most people (at least, most people reading blogs like
| this) today, that meaning comes from employment, from the
| exchange of time for money in the service of others.
|
| But pre-television, and in many parts of the world still today,
| people gather socially for many reasons _other than the strict
| definition of work above_.
|
| The rat in the race doesn't know what to do when the race is
| over, because all the other rats are still in the race, and he's
| never been outside before.
|
| The list in this post is about how to make the outside world
| _look like the race you just left_ : Do things! Find people to do
| them with! Get out of your comfort zone!
|
| These are mechanisms for people without strong social and
| community ties to fill their time.
|
| I would encourage anyone in this situation to consider what
| aspects of their prior race-like lives they would like to _lose_
| first, and to find communities they would like to belong to. Some
| of those many be activity-oriented, and there 's nothing wrong
| with that, but they don't _have_ to be interesting activities.
| binkHN wrote:
| > The rat in the race doesn't know what to do when the race is
| over, because all the other rats are still in the race, and
| he's never been outside before.
|
| Enlightening. Thank you.
| kevinwang wrote:
| This person also posted an amazing, unvarnished update recently
| (about 5-6 years later):
| https://livingafi.com/2021/03/17/the-2021-early-retirement-u...
| kerkeslager wrote:
| The subtext of many of the responses to this post is a self-
| congratulatory "I knew all along that his plan was
| unrealistic". It seems like the thing people like about the
| follow-up post is that they think it confirms their worldview.
|
| If we actually listen to the original author instead of looking
| for confirmation of our own worldviews, the author tells a
| different story. He says, (this is a copy-paste quote): "The
| initial plan itself was fine." His original plan _wasn 't_
| unrealistic, at least not any more unrealistic than any more
| traditional life plans--it simply fell prey to life events
| which would cause almost any plan to fail. His partner left him
| for another man and he was diagnosed with a serious medical
| issue.
|
| And critically, while the author's plan has changed, the goals
| still haven't. Not working is still the goal.
|
| I've seen the plan that's common on Hacker News fail too. Lots
| of startups fail, and even if your startup succeeds that
| doesn't mean you're satisfied. The best case scenario has
| nothing to do with economics: it's coming to peace with
| yourself, finding meaningful relationships, and feeling a sense
| of purpose and belonging. I won't write off the possibility of
| finding those things in a startup or a career, but in my life
| I've seen it far less than the self-congratulatory posts here
| would lead you to believe.
| CleverLikeAnOx wrote:
| Furthermore, his plan didn't _fail_ per-se. I am sure he was
| aware that he may have to go back to work if life threw him
| curveballs. It did, so he did. He had some of the best years
| of his life, he had some bad years. He is still doing
| financially well. That 's as good as most people get working
| or not.
| adwn wrote:
| > _His partner left him for another man and he was diagnosed
| with a serious medical issue._
|
| Both of those events are _very_ common - especially medical
| issues. Once you 're getting old, developing a "serious
| medical issue" is more common than not! Any plan which
| assumes that you'll neither break up with your partner nor
| develop medical issues _for the rest of your life_ is a plan
| destined to fail.
| kerkeslager wrote:
| ...in which you cherry-pick one sentence from my post,
| ignoring the sentence before it. That's exactly why I said,
| "at least not any more unrealistic than any more
| traditional life plans".
|
| Working a job doesn't fix either of these problems. At
| least in the US, many people who go bankrupt due to medical
| issues _have health insurance_ , usually provided by their
| job. These problems are compounded if your plan was to
| work, but you can't work due to your medical problems. And
| while medical or disability insurance can theoretically
| account for these worst-case scenarios, they can be so
| costly that they may cause financial problems even if no
| disaster happens.
|
| Divorce is also a major cause of bankruptcy, even if you're
| employed.
|
| You're doing exactly what my previous post accused people
| of doing: gloating about how the author's plan failed,
| without looking at how plans that fit your worldview don't
| account for the same life events any better.
| adwn wrote:
| > _That 's exactly why I said, "at least not any more
| unrealistic than any more traditional life plans"._
|
| And you're still wrong. Retiring early renders your
| financial situation much more fragile and susceptible to
| disruptive events. Sure, you can go bankrupt due to
| divorce or illness even when employed, but it's _much
| more probable_ when you don 't have an income stream and
| when your financial planning depends on not breaking up
| or not getting ill.
|
| > _gloating about how the author 's plan failed, without
| looking at how plans that fit your worldview don't
| account for the same life events any better._
|
| You're making a lot of unwarranted assumptions about my
| "worldview" and about how I'm "gloating" over the
| author's misfortune. Don't.
| SavantIdiot wrote:
| This follow up is way more compelling because it deals with the
| reality. I'm jealous of the authors communication skills and
| their partner's: there are some very hard statements in there
| about feeling worthless and falling behind because of no job. I
| wonder of those words were spoken calmly, or shouted through
| tears.
|
| Here are their discussions: https://livingafi.com/post-fire-
| relationship-disconnect/
|
| TL;DR: He has to go back to work due to medical issues, and his
| relationship didn't work out. But he's still got his chin up
| and it's great.
| quietbritishjim wrote:
| > [article author, to wife] ... I thought that what you
| wanted was to live a life of freedom, with me. We'd talked
| about this.
|
| > [article author's wife] Not exactly. I wanted to have kids
| with you and work and be like everyone else. Live a normal
| life. I'm tired of being weird. And I don't want to go back
| to work if you aren't. That's weird too. You wouldn't even be
| a stay-at-home-dad. You'd be nothing.
|
| > [article author] And that was it. That the second big
| ticket problem, critical issue #2. She couldn't get her head
| around the idea that we were different.
|
| I don't buy his analysis. I don't think she wanted to do
| those things _because_ others were doing them. I think she
| wanted to have kids and a classic family and happened to
| point out, oh, by the way, other people do those things too.
| Maybe it 's easier to think that your former partner is
| shallow and busy comparing herself to others, rather than
| admit that the desire to start a family is a normal and
| genetically ingrained emotion.
|
| Ironically, his new partner has told him she's interested in
| having kids and they're both working. I know, it's easy to
| claim to understand from an armchair, and I'm not saying I've
| necessarily got this right, but it's definitely interesting
| to consider.
| leetcrew wrote:
| > [article author's wife] Not exactly. I wanted to have
| kids with you and work and be like everyone else. Live a
| normal life. I'm tired of being weird. And I don't want to
| go back to work if you aren't. That's weird too. You
| wouldn't even be a stay-at-home-dad. You'd be nothing.
|
| this part is confusing. it seems like she's saying she
| wanted to be working and have kids the whole time? hard to
| understand how you could get that far along the path
| without realizing it's the exact opposite of what you want.
| a more reasonable way to understand the quote is that she
| simply changed her mind after realizing the implications of
| their life path.
|
| which leads to a more reasonable way of interpreting this
| line:
|
| > [article author] And that was it. That the second big
| ticket problem, critical issue #2. She couldn't get her
| head around the idea that we were different.
|
| I think (or at least hope) the author isn't saying they are
| special people with some kind of special destiny to FIRE.
| if I read it as "she couldn't accept our being different
| [from our friends]", it makes a lot more sense. I think the
| author is painfully aware that working and starting a
| family is the "normal" thing to do.
| jseban wrote:
| I think she's totally reasonable in saying this, and I
| think it's normal that after you've achieved the goal and
| finished a project you've been working on together, you
| would move on to the next project. And the big project in
| a heterosexual relationship is naturally having a family,
| and I think it IS weird to insist on continuing with a
| "life of freedom" when you don't really have any thing
| particular that you're working on. And in the end, he
| also found out that what he needed to be happy, was
| actually to buy a house and start a family, so he ended
| up at the same point himself eventually with his new
| partner.
| [deleted]
| mberning wrote:
| Yeah I feel like he has a fairly dim view of a typical
| lifestyle based on some faulty assumptions. He seems to
| think that "staying on the treadmill" would be done by most
| people primarily for vain or frivolous reasons. That might
| be a part of it, but many people want or need these things
| out of necessity. Withdrawing from from working life and
| living like an austere hermit is not going to fly for a
| family of 4, for example. Hell, he was not even able to
| make it work as a couple. Very few mothers are going to
| tolerate raising a family on 30k a year when they damn well
| know their partner can go out and make 5x that much.
|
| I also really question the whole living on 30k thing with
| 950k in the bank. That could be invested into some monthly
| paying income ETFs that would easily pay double if not more
| what he was taking out. Without even touching the
| principal.
| slumpt_ wrote:
| Yep. Author is avoiding the hardest realizations and
| emotions here. I don't necessarily blame them, but they're
| gonna need to confront that to have a healthy relationship
| in the future.
| AutumnCurtain wrote:
| It is ultimately his perspective but I agree, he was one
| layer of abstraction away from calling her a "normie". She
| had goals and ambitions he didn't share; that doesn't mean
| she "doesn't get it", it means they're different people.
| ryandrake wrote:
| What it tells me is that there are two really important and
| serious things you need to consciously commit to in order
| to be compatible with this lifestyle. 1. Set aside that
| urge to keep up with the Joneses, and 2. Stop deriving life
| meaning from employment. These habits can be deeply
| ingrained in someone's personality, like an addiction in
| remission, and may rear their heads even if you agree to
| deliberately try to fight it. I don't think this is
| genetic. It comes from a lifetime of social conditioning,
| from watching your parents and friends do it. I'd actually
| like to read more about the strategies people have
| successfully used to deprogram themselves and help their
| loved ones also move past these things, helping them make
| the jump to FIRE (or regular-retirement).
| dougmwne wrote:
| I think a serious problem here is that he thought he was
| free from the treadmill, but it wasn't true. He just so
| happened to be at a certain rung of the ladder along with
| all of his peers and as he retired, it felt like he
| climbed even further and had "made it" in a way they
| hadn't. But he had really hit the pause button on his
| accomplishments, so as his peers entered the next life
| phase of increased career security and financial options,
| he was left behind and suddenly found himself low on the
| ladder looking up. Much of his personal angst came from
| this.
| quietbritishjim wrote:
| You seem to be saying exactly the same thing as the
| author, which is precisely what I was disagreeing with. I
| can think of THREE reasons to want to continue working
| past the point the author of the article did:
|
| 1. You derive meaning from work.
|
| 2. You want more shiny material stuff all the time for
| shallow "keeping up with the Joneses" reasons
|
| 3. You want to raise a family, which was not possible in
| the financial plan of the article's author.
|
| You and the author both focussed on 2, but to me it
| sounds like the wife mainly wanted 3. Reason 2 may or may
| not be genetically ingrained, that is besides the point;
| wanting children _definitely_ is, at least in some
| people. (A sibling comment suggested that they may not
| have been able to have genetic children for other
| reasons, but that doesn 't necessarily stop the desire.)
| and0 wrote:
| Odd, I was going to comment on how poor the communication
| with his partner was in the updated post. I realize he'd
| written the 2021 update after their separation (hard to tell
| if these individual sections were real-time but even worse if
| so) but what was happening was so obvious when he first
| started to mention the issues, and he described her so
| harshly and without empathy, like she had some bug that
| needed to be "fixed" and he wasn't bothering to relate.
| SavantIdiot wrote:
| I think the communication was good and the understanding
| was lacking. Talking != understanding. And sometimes
| talking is really really hard when you know it might lead
| to a minefield.
| CleverLikeAnOx wrote:
| In the post-FIRE relationships disconnect post, it was
| jarring how he went from having what I saw as a
| _reasonably_ well communicated discussion to "she couldn't
| get her head around us being different." Seems like the
| understood each other, but had different priorities. Each
| also seemed to have a bit of disdain for the other's way of
| thinking.
|
| He saw her desires as vain and felt like she didn't
| understand his ideal of freedom. She saw his freedom as
| stagnation.
| throw1234651234 wrote:
| Always beautiful to see people comment on the realities of
| these situations.
| metalex wrote:
| This article makes me really sad. I know this is just my
| perspective, but this person isn't living -- they're just
| existing. What are they striving for? Consuming media?
| joshuaissac wrote:
| In the article, he writes about what he is striving for: to
| be able to do things that he wants to do rather than what his
| employer wants him to do. So from his perspective, he would
| be living his life while others just work instead of living.
| metalex wrote:
| Yeah - absolutely just my selfish perspective.
|
| I feel like he needs an existential purpose or threat -
| everyone does. "Doing what I want" isn't a purpose, in my
| opinion, but rather a void that needs to be filled with
| something meaningful.
| bserge wrote:
| That's a personal matter. Inside our brain we have two sides
| - the more primitive brain that just needs
| safety/food/reproduction/entertainment and the more advanced
| side that needs to plan and do stuff otherwise it questions
| it's existence.
|
| People have a different balance of either, so some are happy
| with just living while others need to do something, anything
| beyond the basics.
|
| Neither is wrong from a personal point of view - if it makes
| you happy/fulfilled, that's it.
|
| From a societal perspective those whose primitive brain has
| more control are seen as useless, however.
| metalex wrote:
| Maslow's hierarchy of needs :) I feel like having the
| food/water/shelter covered isn't enough - fortunate folks
| eventually hit the self-actualization point. Sounds like
| the author is now finding more meaning with starting a
| family (props to him).
| someelephant wrote:
| Fascinating to see somebody analyze their own life. Seeing what
| he's written I draw such different conclusions about the
| underlying causes of the events which passed over the last few
| years. In particular the way he analyzed his relationship and
| the fact he still feels somewhat responsible just blows my
| mind. He's far too hard on himself.
| garmaine wrote:
| I think he lets himself off the hook... "it's her problem,
| she just wanted to keep up with the Jones's" etc...
| sevagh wrote:
| 2018: life was perfect with my perfect partner until my perfect
| partner left me
|
| 2021: life is perfect with a new perfect partner who's never
| going to leave me unlike my previous perfect partner
|
| 2023: any guesses?
| dougmwne wrote:
| He certainly seems to have kicked his mental health can down
| the road. Lots of signals that he is immature in his
| relationships and perhaps using them as a crutch.
| CleverLikeAnOx wrote:
| Do we need to be this reductive? He was happy in a
| relationship but then it got bad and fell apart. That
| happens, alternative lifestyle or not. I don't see why this
| implies that his next relationship is unlikely to work out.
| dayvid wrote:
| That post was incredible. Really rare and refreshing to find
| that level of honesty on the internet nowadays (even when
| pseudonymous), sadly. Reflected a lot of thoughts I had about
| potential downsides to FIRE.
| neogodless wrote:
| The downsides like having different visions for your life
| from your spouse, or discovering you have a chronic health
| issue were not due to FIRE. In fact, FIRE gave the author
| tools to decide what to do about those issues. The result may
| not be what the author wanted (divorce, a new relationship,
| seeking additional income to support that new relationship)
| but none of the issues were _caused_ by FIRE.
| dayvid wrote:
| I'm not knocking FIRE. I like the idea of it and especially
| the author's comment about a lot people just following what
| people around them are doing instead of living life by
| their own standards.
|
| The downsides I thought of were the inherit randomness of
| life (catastrophic incidents, children, relationships,
| health). I'm fairly certain the people working at my
| company past potential retirement are due to them having
| family and wanting the insurance perks and hedge for any
| potential uncertainties children and older age can throw at
| you.
|
| I really liked that the author elaborated on the
| relationship dynamic, because I think that's something that
| could be a common issue in FIRE relationships with a
| middle-class or higher partner. What if they still want to
| work or do more? Can your lifestyle accomodate that?
| soco wrote:
| The way I read his new job is also giving him a sense of
| purpose, which, even with all the pleasures of being
| independent, seems kinda important for the human social being.
| choxi wrote:
| The followup is very much worth the read
| babyblueblanket wrote:
| This is 10x better than the OP article. Please, anyone reading
| the comments, read this article in its entirety instead.
| temp8964 wrote:
| The conclusion came to me is that extreme working and extreme
| no-working are both bad in the long run. All you need is a
| work-family-life balance.
|
| I am also glad that the author now opens the door for getting
| married and even having a kid.
|
| Work, spouse, kids, the traditional way of life have been
| explored and chosen by human being for at least thousands of
| years. The psychological / economic needs for living with a
| family do not go away just because you "decide" you don't need
| them. There are people live alone, but most of them are not
| happy, for most of the time.
|
| When you are young, you may like to wonder why do I have to
| live a life like my parents? When you get older, you will
| slowly or quickly realize that you are just a regular human
| being like everybody else.
| baby wrote:
| Sorry but I still don't see the point in having kids or how
| it's necessary for a happy life. People don't make kids
| because it makes them happy. People make kids because they're
| wired to do so.
| Aperocky wrote:
| > slowly or quickly realize that you are just a regular human
| being like everybody else.
|
| The earlier the better, one of the best revelation that I had
| is that 'nobody actually cares about me that much'. So much
| of the peer/social pressure are self inflicted.
| fullshark wrote:
| Well hopefully you surround yourself with a smallish circle
| of people who care about you! But yes all your high school
| / college classmates / coworkers are off living their lives
| and not thinking about you.
| p1esk wrote:
| _Work, spouse, kids, the traditional way of life have been
| explored and chosen by human being for at least thousands of
| years._
|
| Vast majority of people did not "choose" all that throughout
| human history. There was zero alternative. They had to work
| to survive. If you want to make your argument you should only
| look at those who were born rich enough to not have to work.
| kebman wrote:
| People didn't really work that hard during the Medieval
| period. It was pretty chill. Play some chess with your bro.
| Work your ass off in the field or else no food. Get hounded
| by people in all-metal coats of arms. Back to playing chess
| with your bro. Wifey did the dishes anyway. Ooops here she
| is, better get my ass down to the field and till some
| earth, or I have to sleep in the barn!
| temp8964 wrote:
| Of course people can choose not having spouse or kids. What
| do you mean there is zero alternative?
|
| There are people born rich enough to not have to work, but
| do they live a happy life by not working all the way?
| chromanoid wrote:
| Choice comes in various flavors. A single woman was very
| vulnerable some decades ago. While single men had it
| better there were and are still many stereotypes that
| affect your life. Just read the parts about feeling
| disconnected to many old friends. Imagine that a thousand
| times when you look at the past.
| temp8964 wrote:
| The whole point is that when you have more and more
| choices , you can't escape your psychological needs as a
| human being. You can have sex with random strangers with
| protection from modern technology, but they don't provide
| the same intimacy you need from your spouse. You can live
| alone with single wage, but it does not fulfil your
| psychological needs can only be gained from living with a
| family.
| kerkeslager wrote:
| > Of course people can choose not having spouse or kids.
| What do you mean there is zero alternative?
|
| You're doing that thing where you claim there's freedom
| of choice because you're ignoring the punishment
| inflicted on one choice.
|
| The choice not to commit to a long-term relationship has
| had severe financial implications for centuries,
| _especially_ if you are female. Until the invention of
| effective birth control, the choice to not have children
| meant giving up much of heterosexual sex.
|
| While there are still problems, the ability to have
| healthy heterosexual sexual relationships without
| children is largely solved by modern birth control. But I
| would argue that the choice to not marry is still
| financially punished pretty severely, though perhaps not
| as much as in centuries past.
|
| > There are people born rich enough to not have to work,
| but do they live a happy life by not working all the way?
|
| You're asking this as if it's a rhetorical question, but
| it's not.
|
| Being a rock climber, I've met plenty of Trustafarians
| who haven't done a lick of work in their lives, and are
| quite happy being skiing, surfing, or rock climbing bums.
|
| The flipside, is when I've met people who tried not
| working and said they didn't like it, that has _always_
| been coupled with a profound lack of imagination or self-
| awareness. I distinctly remember a post on HN where
| someone took a week off and just played World of Warcraft
| for the entire week, and when he found this unfulfilling
| he concluded that not working wasn 't for him. It should
| be no surprise that a lifestyle with no physical activity
| or direct human interaction is dissatisfying--this isn't
| proof that work is a necessary part of human happiness,
| it's just proof that giving up work without replacing it
| with something better doesn't succeed.
| war1025 wrote:
| > the choice to not have children meant giving up much of
| heterosexual sex.
|
| A bit personal maybe, but my wife has never been on birth
| control, we don't use protection, and have never had an
| "oops" baby. We had kids when we wanted kids, and haven't
| had kids when we didn't want kids.
|
| It's really just... not that hard...
| temp8964 wrote:
| The whole point is that even with material support,
| people still need to live with spouse and kids, and
| having a regular work (not necessarily work for someone
| else), to have a happy life.
|
| Yes, modern technology and economy makes it easier for
| you to live alone but it does not change the basic human
| needs. Eventually you will need a spouse (same or
| opposite sex), not just for the money, not for the sex,
| but for the intimacy. And you will want to have kids when
| you get older. And as other comments pointed out, you
| want to live with people who really cares about you and
| you care about them, i.e. your family.
|
| There is nothing magic about this. Just some people
| realize this earlier than others.
| throwaway675309 wrote:
| Lot of Buddhist monks would disagree with you pretty
| strongly. I think you are projecting your own
| needs/wants/desires and I get that, it's hard to get "out
| of your own head"... so to speak.
| temp8964 wrote:
| How is common needs of human being my own needs? How is
| Buddhist monks a good argument here? Whenever someone
| makes a general statement in psychology, it never
| excludes exceptions.
| kbenson wrote:
| > Of course people can choose not having spouse or kids.
| What do you mean there is zero alternative?
|
| It's worth noting that these people are by definition
| going to be outliers in the population, as they don't
| reproduce, so there will always be a selection bias the
| other way.
| p1esk wrote:
| _What do you mean there is zero alternative?_
|
| For most of the human history, for vast majority of the
| people, choosing not to have spouse and kids would mean
| choosing not to have sex, e.g. to become a monk. Also,
| the societal pressure to choose a traditional way of life
| if you were poor was a lot higher.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Not at all, the oldest profession is sex worker for a
| reason. Paying for sex is an option to being a monk.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| Yeah I'd love to be FI but even more I'd love to make what I
| make now and only work three days a week. Having more Me days
| then Employer days would really change my life.
| dorchadas wrote:
| This is the biggest reason I'll likely stay a teacher. I
| get plenty of 'me' days and, in a low CoL area, a decent
| enough salary. Sure, I'll likely never retire early (which
| was a goal of mine for a long time) and there are
| downsides, but it's better than how I see myself handling
| the alternative.
| ausbah wrote:
| sorry but what? work & family over the past 70-200 years is
| vastly different from work & family before them (most of
| human history).
|
| the focus of former for most everyone was just to survive;
| you worked (probably sustenance farming) to survive, you
| married for resources, you had children to help with work,
| etc.
|
| modern work and family is vastly different because work isn't
| solely motivated by the need for survival, many people today
| are privileged enough to think about other motivating factors
| like meaning, prestige, and satisfaction. only now do people
| had the ability to question things like how they structure
| relations and relationships, and find what works for them
|
| I think trying to extrapolate in the way you are is flawed
| temp8964 wrote:
| Yes. there are changes in technology and economy, but not
| in basic human needs.
|
| There might be less people work for survival, and more for
| higher needs, but it does not change the basic structure of
| human needs (see Maslow's hierarchy of needs).
|
| I don't see how this point out what flaw I may have.
| dcolkitt wrote:
| What's interesting is the radical change over the past
| century, from a life of pure leisure being the mark of the
| aristocratic upper class to the lumpenproletariat. I love how
| Downton Abbey conveys this now alien concept to us early on
| by having the Dowager Countess ask " _what is a 'weekend'?_".
| The perfect modern counter-balance is the classic line from
| Office Space: " _Well, you don 't need a million dollars to
| do nothing, man. Take a look at my cousin. He's broke, don't
| do Shit!_"
| bambax wrote:
| Work as purpose is a rather novel idea. Max Weber is really
| helpful here, and his seminal book, while published in
| 1905, seems more relevant than ever.
|
| It used to be that you worked just as much as you needed
| to, to sustain yourself. So much so that raising wages
| would immediately result in people working less, as they
| could earn the same amount of money with less work.
|
| Then at some point work became a "calling" and working as
| hard as possible viewed as respectable, desirable and
| commendable.
|
| I still think this is insane. There are so many things to
| do, so many things to think/dream about. So many moments to
| just do nothing and stare at nature. I don't have time for
| work.
| bserge wrote:
| It seems most people here mean "work" as in trading
| time/skill for money.
|
| Everything in life is work, however. Building dams,
| building robots, creating music, raising kids, even
| playing games.
|
| If you had enough finances to do anything (including
| nothing at all), I'm quite sure you'd quickly find
| yourself working anyway. I know I would.
|
| I don't think it's some modern concept, it's just that
| life has no real purpose beyond survival and reproduction
| and we (as in our consciousness) need one otherwise the
| dread of existence will set in sooner or later.
| temp8964 wrote:
| No. "Work as purpose" is an observation, maybe a new
| observation (not sure about that). It's not like that a
| scholar invented an idea, then the mass followed the idea
| and the idea changed everyone's life. No scholar has this
| kind of magic power.
|
| Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is called a theory. In its
| nature, it's a framework of psychological conceptions
| based on observations. It's not like Maslow tells people
| what they need and the human beings on this planet start
| to pursue their needs based on Maslow's demand.
|
| Yes. People want to work less, but people can't just
| wonder around without purpose for a long time. When you
| find your purpose, and start to spend your time on it,
| you are "working" on that purpose. Nobody says work =
| work for a boss.
| barrkel wrote:
| You can make an analogy with the theory of the firm
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_the_firm). More
| workers = more transaction costs. Twice as many people
| working half as many hours is more expensive; it's more
| efficient to employ people full time.
|
| You'd expect this to crowd out many part-time jobs, jobs
| that aren't autonomous and low-context. That is, fast
| food cook, delivery driver, cleaning jobs etc. can be
| done part-time, but it's much harder to find shorter
| hours for white-collar work.
| joshuaissac wrote:
| Discussion of that post from 3 months ago:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26543527
| dougmwne wrote:
| Wow.
|
| This is amazing, and so incredibly and refreshingly honest.
| This helps to repair some of the damage that FIRE bloggers have
| done to my professional motivation. I have been feeling the
| isolation during COVID and his description of the isolation
| than comes from hitting the career off switch really hits home.
| I have some thinking to do.
| opportune wrote:
| I really don't like how he tries to diminish his partner's
| feeling about "falling behind" as some mirage created by
| Instagram and classism. I think it's pretty uncontroversial
| that most people don't want to live on $30k/year for their
| entire life when they could maybe work and get more.
|
| Though maybe this is colored by the relevation that follows
| shortly thereafter. To me it shows an unwillingness to think
| critically about this. It sounds like his partner communicated
| with him changes she wanted to make (go back to work and not
| live like college students) and he just ignored them because he
| thought they were stupid.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| I mean, she was down for FIRE. I'm sure they discussed the
| budget before hand. If things changed, and she wanted to go
| back to work to live a more luxurious lifestyle, well, she's
| welcome to? He's under no obligation to do the same. I feel
| like she wanted him to return to work as well to keep up with
| the jones's and I can understand him saying no to that.
| jseban wrote:
| I totally agree, and I also don't think it's a good idea to
| choose sides here and start to deny the pleasures of
| accumulating material comforts as something stupid, after
| all, accumulating nice things IS fun and meaningful! Even
| though I can agree that it's commonly over emphasized, and
| that it's not the most important thing after all, it still is
| really meaningful, and also what gives most people meaning in
| their lives, after all, so taking a dismissive opinion of
| this is probably not going to be a good idea..
| fossuser wrote:
| It doesn't seem like a huge surprise:
| https://samharris.org/podcasts/254-mating-strategies-
| earthli...
|
| It can come out in different ways, but I suspect it's not
| that divorced from the above. It's not very attractive to be
| unemployed and not very ambitious. Maybe the introspection of
| why is missing, but I suspect that's the reason.
| opportune wrote:
| See this is still blaming the problem on some kind of
| externalized illogical other you aren't willing to
| understand (just replace "partner falling for Instagram
| lies" with neckbeardy EvPsych) rather than empathizing with
| the other person's opinion.
|
| Like if your partner directly tells you they are unhappy
| because of XYZ, rather than thinking it's stupid/some part
| of how the woman brain works (eye roll), it seems pretty
| clear that not doing anything to fix XYZ - in this case
| working again and living more luxuriously - is being a bad
| partner. Doesn't matter what the genders are or what XYZ
| is.
| fossuser wrote:
| I think we agree more than we disagree and you're being
| more hostile than necessary.
|
| > "it seems pretty clear that not doing anything to fix
| XYZ - in this case working again and living more
| luxuriously - is being a bad partner."
|
| Yeah - and the _why_ is the bit I was getting at. They
| have a core value disagreement here, it 's likely to be a
| common one given sexual selective incentives and
| behavior. I'm not making a moral judgement, but that's
| likely the truth.
|
| It also sounded like she didn't want to work again - it's
| unclear if she wanted them both to work, or just for him
| to work. The podcast I linked is pretty good, men and
| women often cheat for different reasons, but her
| motivation here is a pretty textbook example.
|
| His comments are also in the context of her cheating on
| him and a breakup, so unsurprisingly skew negative.
| garmaine wrote:
| Wife was saying "I feel like we should both work again"
| and his response was "OK, how about you work? I'm good."
|
| I'm not surprised at all at what happened.
| balfirevic wrote:
| Well, it's a perfectly reasonable response.
| notenoughhorses wrote:
| I appreciated reading about how both of them reacted to the
| realities of early retirement. I like to think I could be
| like the author, and be happy without much, but it did make
| me think if I might be more like his SO, especially when I
| see my friends upgrading their lives in our 40s.
|
| My take away from the post is that they fundamentally felt 2
| different ways about it. The author did not feel the stuff
| his SO felt. But she was on board with retiring on "lean
| fire" so I doubt she predicted this about herself either.
|
| I read this post a few weeks ago, so maybe I'm remembering
| wrong, but I thought the author was perfectly open to SO
| returning to work, but she wasn't sure in the middle of all
| this if she really wanted to do that? I don't think it's the
| author's responsibility, and I don't think he thought it was
| his responsibility, to decide for his spouse if she worked or
| not, that was up to her to decide.
| dougmwne wrote:
| There was definitely some unreliable narrator there. She
| said she wanted kids. Apparently he did not, since
| presumably they were not part of the budget. He claimed to
| be outside the need for more spending and accused her of
| being fooled by social media, but admits he felt a lot of
| shame at falling behind his peers in accomplishment. She
| said she couldn't see herself being with someone who
| wouldn't work to improve their lives and support a larger
| family. He said he wouldn't go back to work, even if she
| did. In his next relationship, he went back to work,
| increased his spending and is planning on having kids,
| several large reversals. Seems to me that they weren't so
| different after all.
| fossuser wrote:
| It sounded like she changed her mind on the kids thing -
| or at least they didn't discuss it as much as they should
| have.
|
| The sense I got was that it was status related and he was
| pretty close to right. She didn't like being with someone
| who wasn't working, didn't like telling her friends her
| SO didn't work, didn't like not having things to talk
| about, etc. He was low status compared to her friends.
|
| Eventually she cheated on him - I think that's wrong, but
| the motivation behind it is not unpredictable or
| uncommon: https://samharris.org/podcasts/254-mating-
| strategies-earthli...
|
| The new relationship is different in part because his SO
| is a librarian with a small income, there isn't as much
| of a status divide and he _is_ high status in that match
| given his high net worth.
|
| There's a lot of evidence that women tend to select
| people at their level or higher for mates:
| http://rationallyspeakingpodcast.org/216-being-a-
| transhumani...
|
| A lot of this feels like a narrative on top of that core
| issue without recognizing the underlying problem.
|
| Obviously things are more complex than this at the
| individual level, but it feels like a lot of talking
| around the core issue without recognizing it.
|
| I'm not making morality judgements on any of this (except
| perhaps the cheating), but it's good to recognize the
| pragmatic reality of the world you're in when making
| these kinds of decisions. If you decide to retire early,
| it'll likely affect your relationship opportunities in
| some ways you may not understand.
| CleverLikeAnOx wrote:
| Seems like fundamentally different ways of life between them.
| The author seems to have strongly held views that fall well
| outside the mainstream. Something being "pretty
| uncontroversial" is not a compelling point to such a person,
| particularly when it clashes with said strongly held views.
|
| I can relate to his outlook. I hope he was more diplomatic
| during their discussions about this, but now that it's after
| the fact, we are reading his blunt opinions on the matter.
| It's hard to know if he is "right" and she really was
| influenced by status-driven thinking via Instagram, or if he
| was just being hard-headed. Either or both are plausible to
| me.
| olah_1 wrote:
| Yeah, this line:
|
| > And she wasn't trying that hard anyway, because she had
| acquired, somehow, New Life Dreams, which had to do with
| Conspicuous Consumption and Keeping Up and being Visibly
| Awesome -- dreams which are at odds with my own.
|
| The desire to be seen and take part in society is
| fundamentally human. Yes, you can overdo it, but you can also
| underdo it. There is nothing wrong with going to nice
| restaurants, posting about it, discussing it with your
| friends, etc.
|
| My guess is that they simply stopped having a social life
| with their peers (he hinted at such). That sounds horrible to
| me.
|
| There is a reason that retirement communities exist. Just
| because you retire, that doesn't mean you exit from
| community.
| war1025 wrote:
| > I think it's pretty uncontroversial that most people don't
| want to live on $30k/year
|
| One thing that I missed the first time this article got
| posted is that he and his (ex)wife had separate finances.
|
| He had an income of 30k/year, she presumably had a similar
| income.
|
| Living on 60k/year seems like a whole different ballgame than
| 30k/year.
| garmaine wrote:
| Yeah that was a big WTF moment for me too. It is completely
| normal and human nature to want to do better and have more.
| This has nothing to do with social media! I couldn't imagine
| being stuck in a rut of a frugal fixed income forever. I post
| nothing on social media, I care nothing about keeping up with
| what I see there, and I like being different. But I still
| want to be advancing, improving, and getting more.
| CleverLikeAnOx wrote:
| I doubt the author sees being frugal as a rut and I doubt
| that the author sees "getting more" as advancement. You and
| the other are both human and normal regardless.
|
| The author's outlook on life is completely valid, so is his
| partner's, so is yours. Your outlooks has nothing to do
| with social media, but maybe his partner's really did. We
| only have the author's words to go by for this story.
| garmaine wrote:
| I'm not criticizing his own choices. What I'm surprised
| at is his lack of empathy for his partner's. We have only
| one side of the story, but it does seem very one-sided.
| CleverLikeAnOx wrote:
| Agreed, especially after reading this post
| https://livingafi.com/post-fire-relationship-disconnect/
|
| It's a dialog he is creating as a summary of many
| discussions. In his version of the story they both
| communicate well and seem to hear each other, but not
| agree on life. Then his takeaway is that she didn't hear
| him, which was an odd take.
| eloisius wrote:
| Wow, this post is an incredible example of gut-wrenching
| honesty about things working out differently than expected. I'm
| eight months into life without work right now, and can relate
| to a lot of this. I didn't make a plan to retire (early or
| otherwise), I just wanted to move abroad and take time to learn
| the language and think a little about what I want out of life
| aside from career.
|
| I can relate to the anxiety and ennui they experienced in 2018.
| Something good about being in the rat race is that even during
| bad days you don't feel adrift or wasteful. During the first
| couple of months after I quit working, and after moving abroad,
| I hadn't yet enrolled in full-time language classes. At first
| it was easy to enjoy myself meeting new people, going rock
| climbing, traveling a bit, going on dates, etc. But after a
| while, I started noticing that if I woke up at 11am and didn't
| have "something to do," i.e. a plan, I started feeling a very
| strong sense of unease, something like a very mild sense of
| panic or alarm. Like here I am with no work to eat up my day,
| plenty of money, nothing but free time. If I wake up on the
| wrong side of the bed, or just don't feel like I'm enjoying
| myself, I am utterly wasting my precious time on Earth. That's
| a pretty dark chasm lurking just beneath the surface. If I'm
| having a bad day but can still pour a cup of coffee and go to
| work, I'm at least banking up money for some future day that I
| can enjoy it.
|
| I feel like he was a little unfair in how he characterized his
| partner's experience of that ennui, although I don't blame him
| for feeling bitter after an affair. I've never wanted to keep
| up with the Joneses or spend my life jockeying for status, but
| I still don't think I'd feel okay permanently quitting work
| this young. There's more existential dread in being immediately
| responsible for enjoying every single day to the fullest than
| I'm ready to face.
| ericjang wrote:
| Thanks for sharing your experience. the term "dark chasm
| lurking just beneath the surface" to describe what total
| freedom looks like on bad days speaks to me.
|
| I also agree with your assessment of his partner. Keeping up
| with the Joneses sounds shallow at first, but I think it
| belies the true human desire to be _respected by others_.
| Maybe his partner felt like they weren 't "accomplishing
| much" in life, which doesn't mean a 9-5 per se or an annual
| income $ per se, but that accomplishments were the best way
| to get respected by other people.
|
| We're social creatures, so I don't think it's wrong to seek
| social validation by others. I think when one is single and
| looking for a partner, what other people think _does_ matter
| a lot. I think if the author was still committed to not
| working, finding a partner would be much harder.
| fossuser wrote:
| I think people need purpose to feel fulfilled.
|
| Work serves as a default purpose for lots of people. Family
| and children are a pretty good built-in biological one.
|
| Learning things, building a company, making things can all
| serve that need. Working on big unsolved problems can too.
|
| I think most people feel uneasy and unhappy if they're not
| part of a community doing something they think is valuable. A
| lot of religion serves this purpose for people (though I
| personally find religion to be a net negative).
|
| Finding different things that motivate you and are worth
| dedicating your life (or some subset of your life) to work on
| is hard, but I think knowing that it's worth trying to find
| something is the first step.
|
| True financial independence is a way to make the search more
| possible without anxiety of financial ruin, but it doesn't
| remove the non-money related anxieties and it doesn't fix all
| the other sexual selection incentives that remain.
| jseban wrote:
| I don't understand how you can wake up with nothing to do and
| panic over it. I would always have some hobby or sports
| project going that I know I'd always want to work on, I
| seriously can't understand how someone can run out of things
| to do when there's painting, music, cooking, sports etc, just
| one of those would keep me busy and socially connected for a
| lifetime.
| stay_pattern wrote:
| A shift in mindset is required. We value our time too much.
| It's true that it's finite and non-replenishible, but we
| still value it too much. Once we can see our time for what
| it's really worth (not much), anxieties about potentially
| pissing it all away disappear, replaced with ideas and
| possibilities (most of which may have previously have been
| classified as "a waste of time").
| someelephant wrote:
| I'd like an update on his back issues. Back issues are often
| the result of people not dealing with stress in their life.
| Speaking from personal experience and a huge army of others who
| have had a similar experience (John Sarno crew).
| kerkeslager wrote:
| While you may be correct in the general case, there's a much
| more obvious cause than stress in his case: Ehlers-Danlos
| Syndrome.
| someelephant wrote:
| Yeah good point
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