I had to quit reading any FIRE (financial independence, early retirement) blogs because they were full of people headed down this same path: Extreme frugality, bare minimum savings, assuming their lifestyle would never change and nothing would ever go wrong.
Retiring at 30 sounds great, but no one's life goes exactly to plan for next the 30-40 years until traditional retirement age. People change, expectations evolve, possessions wear out and need to be replaced. Living frugally may be fun when you're in your 20s, but it's not so fun when as you get older and your friends want to do things that require money (vacations, hobbies, dining out). Even worse when your romantic partner has different goals in life, as happened here.
Many of the leanFIRE stories have their roots in people who hate their jobs so much that the only thing that motivates them is early retirement. They grind through the job the hate, counting days on their leanFIRE countdown until they can quit working and never look back.
Most of these people would be much happier if they simply invested time and energy into finding a job they enjoy, or at least one that doesn't make them miserable. Even if it requires a pay cut and a later retirement date, it's much better to spend your time doing something you don't hate than it is to grind out a bad job in misery just to reach dreams of early retirement sooner.
I've had friends with trust funds, who just seem to dither around in life. "Making music" they never release. Picking up little "pass the time" jobs. And these are people that aren't living "leanFIRE"
It seems like such a nihilistic way to live. You're just floating along the stream of life. Things worked out for you, but you have no further passion or inclination to improve the world? No problems you could set yourself to solving?
As much criticism as Elon Musk gets (he's certainly not perfect), the path he took is the only thing that makes sense to me in that position. He didn't take his wealth and begin doing angel investing in new CRUD app startups, he wanted to solve real problems humanity faces.
Not everybody has that amount of money or skill, but it's surprising to me how many people's alternative to having a day job they're forced to do is just complete leisure time 100% of the time or picking up arbitrary hobbies.
In this guy's post, like with writing, it sounds like he wasn't actually passionate about it. There are plenty of places to post serialized fiction as you write in online and get feedback (Royal Road, Substack) but it sounded like the measuring stick he was judging himself was becoming a very popular/famous author, not actually writing great stories. It seems just like a different version of the treadmill he was talking about with other people.
Not just FIRE people, but 99% of all retirees at any age end up doing nothing of note with their time. But, and I think you aren't saying otherwise, this is also true of everyone who still has to work, while they are working. Your job is just the thing you have to do (if you are lucky you actually enjoy it). Bottom line, most people don't actually have a purpose or strong passions in their lives. Being retired young doesn't make that more or less true but at least you have more space to confront that void and just maybe find some purpose or passion. If you are totally time strapped with career, family, and other responsibilities, then you really really have no chance.
OTOH maybe our outside judgement that these people are wasting their lives is misguided. Subjective reported happiness for retirees is much higher compared to the working world.
> "Making music" they never release. Picking up little "pass the time" jobs. And these are people that aren't living "leanFIRE"
> It seems like such a nihilistic way to live. You're just floating along the stream of life. Things worked out for you, but you have no further passion or inclination to improve the world? No problems you could set yourself to solving?
You seem to assume or take for granted that releasing music for an external purpose, improving the world, solving problems, etc have inherent value. I would 100% disagree with that. I don't think there's any greater objective value to raising orphans than there is to playing video games for the rest of your life. If somebody wants to make music and never release it, then they should have the freedom to do so. Your comment is on par with criticizing people for living meaninglessly just for not having children, when not everybody values or enjoys having children.
> complete leisure time 100% of the time or picking up arbitrary hobbies.
I'm at the opposite end: I'm surprised how many people care about solving problems or things like that. I couldn't care less. If I were to win the lottery or something, I'd immediately erase my identity and go live in a castle/farm in a forest somewhere, making music I'll never release etc until I die, etc
I don't know. I'd love to have a basic level of income and then be able to dither around with random jobs. I'd love to be a bartender for 6 months, work in a bookstore for 6 months, become a carpenter for a year or two. I'd probably feel differently if I actually had a trust fund since my upbringing would be different but it does feel stifling that in order to have a financially rewarding career one has to stay on a relatively narrow path.
And I say this as someone who has made a major career change during their life.
Elon Musk's life is at the opposite extremum of "floating through life." The man works 90+ hours per week, gambled his entire fortune on two risky hardware companies, serves as a prominent public figure, and destroyed many of his close personal relationships (e.g. remarried numerous times). He's having tremendous impact; I respect him like crazy & would happily back his endeavors... But I wouldn't wish for his lifestyle, let alone choose it.
I rather doubt that you would choose Elon's life either -- especially if you were in his financial position.
(Happy to stand corrected, since I don't know you.)
>Things worked out for you, but you have no further passion or inclination to improve the world? No problems you could set yourself to solving?
And why should they? I'm no fan of trust fund babies who coast by on life, but really, why does anyone have to justify their lives by doing something to improve the world? What are you and I accomplishing right now?
Maybe it's just the severe burnout talking, but I for one would love to just stop everything and exist for a while with no tangible goals or requirements of me. Besides that, what good is a person who did the leanFIRE thing really supposed to do? The whole idea is to live cheaply, they don't have a lot of money to invest in making the world better. They have all the time in the world, sure, but if you're putting 40+ hours into "making the world better" (Whatever that means to you) then are you really retired? Or are you just doing the same thing as everyone else but living a much more meager life for the sake of it.
> you have no further passion or inclination to improve the world? No problems you could set yourself to solving?
Nope! I know who I am and what I’m capable of.
If I could, I would do literally nothing besides wake up, go to the gym, go to the coffee shop, read, watch TV, and surf the internet until I die. I know this because I took several years off and did exactly this until I ran out of money.
I didn't know you could post fiction on Substack, also never heard of Royal Road. Could you recommend anything to get started with those? Specifically with writing serialized fiction. Or some example authors that have used it with success that I can check out?
It's not nihilistic, it's more absurdist. I think, for myself, it is in fact a better way to live life. Sure, I admire people with a life-long drive be it Musk or Michael Jordan (or even some ancient conquerors who clearly did it for lulz and not ideology), but I personally only feel driven for short, narrow projects at most. And the impression that I get is that this is already above median ;)
I'm going to start blogging about FIRE from the other extreme end. I'm a principal engineer making serious dollars, and I'm writing down my playbook.
I intend to "Fat-FIRE", and the only reason I don't retire now is to see how much I can leverage my position to do crazy shit at massive scale. Paradoxically, this sets me up for larger windfalls because I can take risks that my peers do not take.
I am an early retiree, who sometimes thinks it would be nice to get back into the industry just to steer or at least nudge the projects I still care about very much into the direction I'd like to seem them to go. And because they are corporate-driven (hello, Microsoft, Facebook, and Google!) it is just too hard to do from the outside.
+1. I get to be aggressive and do a 100% stocks allocation. Heck, I can even do sensible (I'm talking 1.25x-1.33x) levels of leverage. I get to invest in crypto. I get to borrow a fairly expensive mortgage. Etc.
I noticed even with myself over the years I've flip flopped.
At first I thought I can do lean FIRE, because I was never a big spender in the first place. As I get older I started to gradually spend more on things and frankly enjoy the ability to do so as I earned more. For example, not having to take the crappiest flight to get some where. Recently as I get older, I question if I want to even retire early at all. Now I'm shifting more towards "I want to be financially independent so I'm not reliant on a job, but I still want to work".
So things change, and things change more and faster than we anticipate. And this isn't even accounting for externalities outside of our control.
Were you reading FIRE blogs or extreme frugality blogs? Or maybe I can just ask "how do you define extreme frugality?" (I think of myself as kind of frugal, and planning to have the choice to avoid compulsory paid work before I'm 50, but I also live in one of the most expensive areas of the United States outside of big cities / California, with somewhat regular trips to Disney World and other countries.) But a blog like earlyretirementextreme.com isn't focused on high earners cutting down on consumption and retiring early (that's MrMoneyMustache.com) - it's a version of extreme frugality and self-reliance (and adaptability regardless of changing life circumstances.)
> bare minimum savings
I assume by this you mean "leanFIRE" as in "just enough of a nest egg to retire with 25x your annual expenses and everything goes perfectly?!" Of course, that sounds like a recipe for disaster, and I think in some cases it's a bit of a "oh I can quit my stupid job at the exact moment I hit this magic number" mentality, but a misunderstanding of putting a real plan in place for a future that is filled with variables. Depending on the blogs you frequented, they could be "copycat" blogs that just took the juicy headlines from more in-depth blogs and throwing up quick articles so they can get some ad revenue.
Any idea, handled poorly, is going to either come off unappealing or be riddled with shortcomings. That doesn't mean the original idea can't work (and it does for some - some by luck, others by proper strategy.)
Well someone spending 30k in Massachusetts living in a rental is got to be living extremely frugally.
Then the woman had enough of the pennypinching. I see this so often in my circle - all the missed eating out and having fun is ultimately spent on marriage counseling and divorce lawyers.
> Most of these people would be much happier if they simply invested time and energy into finding a job they enjoy, or at least one that doesn't make them miserable.
I don't think there is such a job, not at 8 hours * 5 days a week. Even if it's unfair towards people who have to work longer and harder - I find it grueling. And I believe it's not due to job (I'm a software developer) - I'm pretty sure if I did my favorite hobby full time for a year I'd start resenting it. It's not for lack of vacation either - 5 weeks/year is just enough to get me to baseline where I'm ready to enjoy proper vacation.
3 days a week * 4 hours + 2 months completely off each year could work nicely, but that's not available in a regular job. It'd mean switching to consulting and my selling skills are non-existent. So I'll probably grind for 2-3 years then take 1-2 years off. I did that once already and the main takeaway was that I could easily and gladly not work ever again, if I could afford it.
> I'm pretty sure if I did my favorite hobby full time for a year I'd start resenting it.
There are some ways around it:
- Have several hobbies and just do whichever depending on your mood and desire at the time. They are hobbies, not jobs; you don't HAVE to do them if you currently don't want to. It's OK to abandon some of your hobbies for years. (There is a good amount of stories about book authors who start seriously writing -- and become famous and financially successful -- at 50+ years old).
- Don't do anything "meaningful" for a while. I have found huge inner peace and improved mental health by just being completely useless for 3 months between contracts. Ironically, during these "useless" times of mine I've progressed hugely on numerous personal interests (some of which overlap with me being a programmer but are relating to things that aren't popular there).
- [Re-]Discover true leisure time: walks in nature and admiring the scenery, boat trips, lying on the beach, traveling to exotic locations (OK, this one is almost impossible at the moment), and many others. We don't live to only work.
> Even worse when your romantic partner has different goals in life, as happened here.
What stings (as I can't help but empathize with the author's feelings) in reading this blog is that it sounds like they were very aligned five years ago, but she discovered a gradual growing miscontent only once they tried the early-retiree life.
Not sure if there's a possible fix there, other than trying to compromise (only one of them working, which would probably just lead to more growing apart)
As many people learned last year, it's easy to gloss over the parts of someone you don't like when you're both actively working towards a goal. When you start spending too much time together, it's easy to have the relationship die from a thousand cuts.
Some people change, most don't, and when one person changes, the other might be comfortable and not want any changes.
Sadly these things can and do happen. But we the people usually make it much worse by holding on to relationships that are past their date, for much longer than it's healthy.
> this same path: Extreme frugality, bare minimum savings
The author is a literal millionaire living (when not working in a well-paid job) on what is roughly the median income for their state. This is neither extremely frugal nor bare minimum savings.
They downgraded from "upper-class lifestyle with upper-class work" to "middle-class lifestyle without work". Not exactly going poor.
> assuming their lifestyle would never change and nothing would ever go wrong.
They bet that nothing would go several-hundreds-of-thousands-dollars wrong. Sounds like a fairly safe bet. If it's likely that you'll get into a situation that costs you that much, having a job doesn't guarantee much either.
I think most people would agree with you. Often called "build the life you want, then save for it"[0]. It's not as sexy, though, probably why the extreme outliers are more written about (or vocal).
Furthermore leanFIRE is at least somewhat irreversible. Not literally, but if you retire at say 35 with a bare minimum nest egg and you decide 10 years later that this isn't how you want to spend the rest of your life, it will be at least more difficult to insert yourself back into whatever career track you were on.
>Most of these people would be much happier if they simply invested time and energy into finding a job they enjoy
Many people reach FIRE without much energy, it's an incredibly easy "set and forget" style of life. Many use its concepts to get in a position where they can find a job they enjoy.
This skips over the part where the individual might want to be entrepreneurial and needs the funds to be in a position to take such a risk. Or the job they love is inherently in a shitty position (passion industries teeming with bad conditions), so it's a "pick your poison situation" until they have leverage, and in many cases, both poisons make them feel miserable anyway.
The idea that there's a job out there for every person they'll enjoy doing as long as they put in the energy, is an incredibly idealistic and even privileged mindset we should be getting rid of.
It's interesting to me that so many people think the path to riches is paved with pinched pennies.
If some of my friends spent half as much time learning new skills as they do saving pennies - I think they'd be much better off. And especially because they don't even enjoy most of the ways they're saving money! Long commutes, cooking all their meals, doing all their dishes. Especially being overworked by a dead-end job they hate!
> ...bare minimum savings, assuming their lifestyle would never change and nothing would ever go wrong.
Isn't the status quo of working a 9-5 and saving ~10% (aka spending 90%) of your salary exactly this? Having ~25x living expenses saved up seems like a significantly less fragile position than you're suggesting. Even this "failure" case, the author ended his 6 years of not earning a penny with more money than he started. And he was able to get a job when he decided he wanted one.
> Most of these people would be much happier if they simply invested time and energy into finding a job they enjoy
Lots of people don't enjoy things that are necessarily financially viable. Putting in a finite amount of time to free yourself to pursue interests without concern for the financials makes a lot of sense.
I think what 99% of people need is a 1 year break from their jobs. If you can't find something meaningful in that 1 year, you'll never find happiness in FIRE. You need to find something that you'd be very happy doing, which also incidentally brings you enough money to supplement your FIRE.
> I had to quit reading any FIRE (financial independence, early retirement) blogs because they were full of people headed down this same path: Extreme frugality, bare minimum savings, assuming their lifestyle would never change and nothing would ever go wrong.
Well said. I'd also add that frugality does not work very well when you have kids. You would want to buy time if you don't want to spend all your time with kids. That means baby sitters, nannies, coaches, and classes for extracurricular activities. Besides, not every parent is good at coaching or tutoring their kids. Given the education quality of the US, you'd have to pay for additional education unless you're the lucky few who have self-driven kids. And what if your kids get sick? The cost just adds up.
Not going to argue about having to spend money to get some time away from the kids. But education? If you retire then you have the time to unschool your children and while your family and friends will think you are crazy your children will get a much better education than anything that involves money.
My FIRE goal is to simply be at a point where my job is optional. I'm no longer sure I want to retire early, but I like the option and flexibility that FIRE gives (and possibly reducing to part-time if it works out that way).
Either I convinced myself of, or I realized quite early on, that I would not be happy if I just retired early. I need to be doing something, so I may as well be working.
In my early twenties, I had a business mostly on autopilot that let me work maybe an hour a day. I mostly spent my time writing poetry, hiking, making friends, etc. It was great. It was not sustainable, but it was perfect for a twenty something exploring the joys and freedoms of youth.
Now, I work much harder, have kids, and responsibilities. That being said, I know the work I do is meaningful, and serves many people. We have significant savings. Though living in a big city means we can't retire early. That's beside the point though: I motivate myself to work because it is meaningful. The same with kids: I don't do things because I enjoy them, I do them in the service of my kids and my family. Reading the story in the OP, I get the sense that the OP hasn't made that transition to thinking about work in terms of serving others. A happy life is not a life of retirement, its a life of meaning. What was meaningful once (aiming for retirement), loses its meaning once it has been attained. You have to keep moving forward. This is not about "Keeping Up," but about stepping outside of oneself, and learning to put others ahead, even if it requires personal suffering. (Something parents of young children know very well.)
Both things can be true. I both enjoy the moments when I can be selfish and live for my enjoyment, and the moments when I focus my life and goals bringing joy to my child and family.
I also joke about wanting to do nothing for a year. About 2-3 weeks in I'm ready to take on a full workload again. I once was unemployed for 2 months, I thought it'd be a vacation. I hated it after the first month.
My problem with being unemployed is that because I know I can't live on my savings I can't enjoy my time because there is always one more part to buy for whatever that I don't dare because I don't know if I will need that money.
Now I have a better nest egg, but I also know my tastes mean I can't retire.
>>A happy life is not a life of retirement, its a life of meaning. What was meaningful once (aiming for retirement), loses its meaning once it has been attained.
Who said anything about happiness. We are mixing two different things 'retirement' and 'happiness'. Happiness is an emotional state, and Retirement is a financial state. Happiness/Sadness can apply to any situation. It has nothing to do with wealth or financial independence.
Retirement is about having enough to not worry about being in need of a job to just keep your head above water.
Retirement is just worth the independence and availability of options.
Kids, family and other obligations you opt in might define the meaning of life for you — For others it could be the exact opposite, or the beginning of the end.
Yes -- I agree. The specifics of meaning are idiosyncratic to the individual. We shouldn't assume that things that are meaningful to us will be meaningful to others!
> A happy life is not a life of retirement, its a life of meaning. What was meaningful once (aiming for retirement), loses its meaning once it has been attained. You have to keep moving forward.
you figured out the meaning of life for everyone?
maybe you are rationalizing your own lack of freedom from work and responsibility as "serving others" and secret to happiness. Which is fine but its a bit weird to say that applies to everyone and ppl who aren't doing have just not made that "transition" to a life of meaning.
I am glad You figured out formula of happiness for your life don't you think everyone else has the same freedom to figure out their own path and formula. Why do you think everyone should follow your universal formula.
If you have a different opinion, then you're probably not looking for advice. This guy is writing a comment for people that don't know what the purpose of life is exactly, and who are looking for other people's opinions.
Except "retirement" simply means "not having to work to survive". It doesn't mean doing nothing, it means having the freedom to choose to do things that are meaningful to you.
In common language it doesn't. Many people who choose to work don't need the job to survive. I know ridiculously wealthy people who just keep working the usual way. No one says those people are retired.
While retirement is cool, I think life goes better without thinking too much about it. Try to work at a job that doesn't suck ass, try to have hobbies and free time, focus on family etc, invest your savings, don't buy stupid stuff. The level of financial freedom will increase in your life just automatically if you live rationally.
This was a really refreshing and honest take on early retirement, especially among the FI blogosphere.
> I looked at other FI bloggers who quit work and retired. They all appeared to be blissful. Stoic. Confident and without reservations. Since I ran into problems myself, I started to feel like I was defective. Like something was wrong with me and that’s why it didn’t work so well. Maybe it has to do with my personality (a nerdy introvert). Or it could be because I’m not trying to sell product and make money off of my choices, like almost everyone else who blogs about FI seems to.
There always seemed like a potentially strange conflict of interest with many of the FI bloggers who are ostensibly "retired early", but still earn a significant amount of money from their FI blogs. Which isn't to say they shouldn't be earning that money, but it does bring up questions about some of the conclusions that they make. (There's also a bit of a groupthink or even cult-like mentality among some of them, particularly in the MMM sphere.)
I really found this passage of the essay ironic.... he talks so much shit about his partner and other people needing to "keep up" with the rest of society and how he isn't like that.... but then he actually does feel the need to keep up with HIS community, which is the FI crowd.
I hate when people confuse not wanting to belong to and impress a particular community with not wanting to belong to or impress ANY community.
He is just like everyone else, just in a different group.
I didn't get that read at all. A desire to maintain happiness whilst having no job to dictate time and activities isn't "just in a different group".
I think they're somewhat non-conformist by posting about negatives and the fact that life will push you in unpredictable directions - even when you've done the maths.
But maybe that's because I tend to agree with the commentary around 'other people needing to "keep up" with the rest of society'.
You mean MMM or the author here? How do you know he "got lucky", since he doesn't mention how he got his nest egg? (Yes in a wider sense lucky to be born smart enough for a good job, in a country with good jobs and so on, but that applies to many people).
Maybe he took those FI blogs seriously and dedicated himself to reaching that goal, and he did. And then people who never tried say "he got lucky".
I really struggled with the author's tone. It dripped of condescension towards those who live a "normal" lifestyle.
I enjoy working. I find purpose and meaning it. I do not let it dominate my life, but without it I would feel incomplete. I run my own business now, and that is very satisfying - but even when I was a corporate consultant I found a lot of enjoyment from spending time with my coworkers, solving problems, and having something to do every day.
For me anyways, a nice salary is also a form of validation and affirmation. That the effort you're expending is valued - at least by someone.
This aspect was so frustrating to me. He's far too dismissive of the reasons people spend money and buy things.
Yes, some people spend money on Louis Vuitton bags and fancy cars to show off. But other things people spend money on do legitimately make their life better, more comfortable, or happier. A house in a quieter neighborhood helps me sleep better. A bigger house, where my spouse and I can each have our private space helps our relationship. Clothes that fit well make me more comfortable. A reliable car makes my life less stressful. Are these things "keeping up" or "conspicuous consumption" just because I was not absolutely required to buy them? Is my partner a bad person if she'd rather have a quiet hotel room than stay in a hostel?
I do think that it's worthwhile to be introspective about how you spend your money, and if the things you're spending your money on actually do make you happier. But this black and white thinking is really counterproductive.
He mulls over and comes to the conclusion later in his post that he probably could have done more to save his relationship. Just based off of the sentence you quoted and other things he said, I wouldn't be surprised if he was very dismissive of his ex-wifes struggle to find meaning, or desire to go back to work. Cheating is terrible, but having a partner who doesn't try to see your struggles can be crippling.
It does read a bit absurd with the over-the-top proper nouns, but this being the author's description of their past beliefs led me to interpret this as their being self-critical about the less nuanced opinions they once held about their lifestyle, rather than seriously looking down their nose at the people who have chosen a different lifestyle.
It is a little condescending, but I think it serves the purpose of illustrating the divide the author feels between himself and his peers. It's hard to relate when one side sees work as time spent purely for money, and another sees work as a source of satisfaction.
My point was that work/income generation can add meaning and validation for lots of folks. Even the author hints at this - his writing wasn't taking off, no one was reading what he wrote, and he was getting discouraged.
I dabble making music. I'm pretty good at it by hobbyist standards, but if I ever tried it "full time" no one would pay me and I'd never get huge. That's just the breaks in creative endeavors. My point is that I'd need a heck of a lot more validation and affirmation in my life than making music no one listens to. I suspect the same is true of the author and his writing.
The only condescension I felt was towards his partner's supposed thinking, which if you read on (spoilers) is presumably due to a nasty breakup + cheating episode leading to an inability to view her position objectively anymore.
I've got 5 years of early retirement under my belt, and I feel like I've had the inverse experience of the OP. The first two years were an incredibly difficult transition period for me.
Losing the status of being a higher up at a successful (small) company was extremely painful, especially because I didn't realize how much of a perk of the job it was. Like many others in this thread, I realized work provided a venue to solve interesting problems with interesting people, and I knew I would miss that (but also knew there were other, non-work ways to scratch that itch). Looking back, though, the ego/status aspect was probably the biggest benefit, and I never admitted that to myself.
Fairly soon into retirement, I made the choice to address the issue by decreasing my ego needs, rather than pursuing another high status non-work position. In some sense, it wasn't too hard to do (though I did find that I had to give up programming for a while, since it turned out that, despite my love of math and puzzle solving, the real biggest draw of programming was the megalomaniacal sense of being a god in a universe of your own creation). The issue is, I went too far, and experienced pretty significant depersonalization, which, from the inside wasn't terrible, but I think made me too weird to interact with my family and friends.
I've currently accepted more ego back into my life (hence this self-centered posting, for instance), but kept it below the old levels. I'm happy with my life, and find it much more even keeled and comfortable than when I was working, though I still miss the emotional highs of succeeding in a big work project.
Anyway, I think what really got me to log on here and post this was seeing the various other posters claiming work as a source of meaning and maybe poo pooing the OP, a bit, for giving it up. Now, on the one hand, I'm not really disagreeing, but I just wanted to add the nuance that, for me, turns out most of that meaning was not coming from nice pro-social things like cooperating with a team and working on interesting problems, but mostly just base status drive and ego. Now, I don't know how much my experience applies to the general population and most jobs, but I have a feeling it probably does apply to a fair chunk of the readers of this forum.
Ah, I feel this. Kind of funny (funny ha ha or funny ouch?) but on my last two projects, I was definitely riding a high of sorts. New languages/frameworks but before long, I had figured out the lay of the land and some of the quirks of these languages and felt like I was really productive, and able to help teammates with questions.
In both cases, 6-12 month long projects ended with basically being thrown in the bin. So, yeah, you can imagine any sense of purpose I may have assigned myself by being involved in these projects was an illusion. Nope - I just enjoyed getting good at something!
Then I spent six months unemployed, and spent some of that doing hobbies I enjoyed... even getting half decent at some things I've tried before. But by the end of the period, given the constraints of the pandemic, I was missing that feeling of doing something on work days that felt like accomplishment. I definitely think for anyone retiring, early or otherwise, you will have to spend a period of decompression and adjustment, either learning to accept consumption over creation, or finding new ways to create. You'll need to find a new balance, and you'll have a lot more time to do it.
The number of status updates I see from former work colleagues who, pretty transparently, just want to Let You Know they are Still Really Important is astonishing -- especially ones close to normal retirement age. My reaction is something akin to (e.g) "what have you done wrong that you're over 60 and are still climbing the greasy pole?"
But it takes effort to check out of the game. I felt _exactly_ the same internal pressure after leaving one job to "update my status" once I started my own, next, Really Important Role - even when doing so was blatantly at odds with my values.
It takes a lot of knowing yourself and your own motivations to come to terms with this. It reminds me a great deal of Kung Fu!
‘Have you no ambition, Master Po?’ -Disciple Caine
‘Only one. Five years hence, it is my wish to make a pilgrimage to the Forbidden City. It is a place where even priests receive no special status. There in the Temple of Heaven, will be a festival The full moon of May. It will be the thirteenth day of the fifth month in the Year of the Dog.’ -Master Po
‘That is not such a great ambition.’ -Disciple Caine
‘But it is ambition, nonetheless. Who among us is without flaw?’ -Master Po
> work provided a venue to solve interesting problems with interesting people
I wish there was a way to find a more balanced work culture (in the USA, other countries may have this already) to be able to continue solving interesting problems with interesting people, as you say, but also live life outside work.
I'd give anything to be able to work maybe 15-20 hours a week at half or a even a third of my salary. But employers will only take 60 hours a week of full-steam burnout, or zero.
Find a different industry. You can make 6 figures in des Moines and they assume you only work 40 hours.
Mind you I know several people who did that for a while and then decided insurance software is soul sucking and so they took a pay cut to work for someone else with more meaning in life. (But they didn't leave des Moines so still 40 hour weeks )
Yes, I'd also like to work in a collaborative setting about 15 hours a week, contributing to a project or research. One thing holding me back, though, is I just can't stomach the idea of some capitalist stealing the fruits of my labor for themselves! I know, extremely hypocritical, as I've benefitted tremendously from capitalism, and continue to do so. That said, I'd be happy to give up my wealth, as long as all rich people had to, and we magically found some stable equilibrium where it stayed that way and society could still function.
I did get into open source work, for a while, contributing to improving the software I used the most. Unfortunately, that mainly resulted in work on Chrome and vscode, and other pieces of software owned by giant, richer-then-god corporations, so the same frustrations applied :p
Did you tame the ego via meditation? If not what other method? Curious about the path that lead to depersonalization. It’s discussed in meditation circles as a fear some have, but really, many monks and “enlightened” are interesting characters eg. Shinzen Young
I've experienced depersonalization because of meditation, and I didn't even know that: (1) what depersonalization was and (2) that it could be cultivated by meditation.
I immediately stopped meditating all together and slowly got my sense of self back. Since then I only briefly meditate when I feel I can use the benefits of it (e.g. enhanced emotional perception or more focus etc.).
It was mostly an ad hoc CBT approach. I spent more time introspecting my motivations, and if I decided I was doing something mainly for ego gratification, I'd stop. At first, that left very little. As I said earlier, programming was out, also most gaming and working out, watching sports, pretty much anything that generated dopamine. I spent a huge amount of time listening to comedy podcasts, and the rest reading. Eventually, though, a big positive was opening up more mental space for my partner, whom I'm sad to say I neglected pretty badly during my working days. After that, I spent more time with a local community group, and, yes, puttering around the house making home improvements.
I actually did try joining a meditation group, but I had a very bad time. I have a loud and constant inner monologue, but when I calmed my thoughts, all I experienced was primal negative emotion. Some mixture of shame and terror. I don't mean this literally, but it felt like a demon was trying to posses my mind. The instructor was a very nice person, but not a professional, so maybe I could have had a better time with a better guide.
Finally, I've stopped trying so hard to suppress my ego. I'm very curious what living in a society that supports low ego would be like, but the one I live in doesn't. Ego has many used (especially in a corporate setting, it's a tremendous asset), and the experiences of ego and dopamine are part of the richness of life, even if, when viewed at a society level, they often seem so dysfunctional and defector-ish.
It's nice to see someone's honest thoughts. Though I can't help but find the person a little judgemental of their prior partner, or people who don't mind working. I also feel like they must have had a strange group of friends, 30k is the US median income, but it seems they only had friends making way more and also somehow being money obsessed.
I do like the conclusion though, we're social animals, and the issue with early retirement is that you're the only one with free time during work hours. They were lucky to have a partner to share their time with, but in my humble opinion, it isn't healthy for a relationship to depend on a single person that heavily. The lack of time spent with others means this one person is all you have to distract yourself, and I think that puts stress on a relationship.
I've never tried FI and early retirement, it's never really been something I've found appealing. That said, I've heard some takes on FI where they say it isn't so much that you'd stop working, but that you no longer depend on work. That means once you have financial freedom from work, you're free to see work as a hobby, and be much pickier about what work you do, where you work, how you allow yourself to be treated at work, etc. Since you know you can walk out at any time, since work isn't something you depend on. It gives you the big end of the stick in negotiating with employers, and that in itself is freeing. I think if I were to do FI, that's the type of FI I'd be interested in personally.
Yep, that's the point of FI. You can pick what you want to do with your life, whether that's working or not. Those who say "I don't see the point of being FI, I want to work my entire life" is like saying "I don't see the point of a BATNA in a negotiation".
> That means once you have financial freedom from work, you're free to see work as a hobby, and be much pickier about what work you do, where you work, how you allow yourself to be treated at work, etc. Since you know you can walk out at any time, since work isn't something you depend on. It gives you the big end of the stick in negotiating with employers, and that in itself is freeing.
You can get this if your skills are currently in demand and have a few months of expenses saved up. You don't need to get to financial independence to have a healthy relationship with your job.
There's a big difference between "If I lose/quit my job I really need to find one in the next few months although it shouldn't be too hard" and "If I lose/quit my job, I don't really need another one but maybe I'll find one if it's a good enough match someday... or not."
The whole thing seemed weirdly condescending towards people with normal working and spending habits, especially because it's not obvious to me what was so great about what the author was doing. The dude hung out for a few years, failed to become a writer, and did some travel, bored his partner to tears, and ... "sucked down an awful lot of media — movies, video games, books", then learned the shit that normal people already know (that unexpected expensive things happens in life).
"To me, these people on their exercise machines were standing still — nothing was happening in their lives". Um, ok.
One of the richest and busiest people I have ever met - like serious 0.1%-percenter rich - is always off hiking in Papua New Guinea and spending shit-tons of money getting wells dug in crappy areas and fighting dysentery and improving the lot of young girls by funding schools and so on. If that person gave me shit for my materialistic lifestyle it'd be one thing. I also know plenty of broke people who do incredibly righteous and interesting stuff, and I'd happily cop the same line from them.
This bozo? Not so much. It's like Holden Caulfield, but middle aged. He barely mentions anything outside himself aside from his partners, old and new (aside from the vague genuflection to CO2 as a justification for his lifestyle, which sits rather poorly with "A trip to Hawaii. Another to Portugal and France" if he's aiming for secular sainthood over an allegedly low-emission lifestyle).
In a shocking development, life spent as a bizarrely young version of one of those old retired people who doesn't do anything beyond travel and putter around isn't that great.
Calling someone who has made himself remarkably vulnerable and open a "bozo" because he doesn't have the same values or life experiences as you do is unkind and uncharitable. We all experience things in our own time and our own way, and while I have my own thoughts about his experiences and areas that he might examine more closely, I'm also not revealing personal details of my own life for public examination.
I called him a bozo not because we don't share values, but because:
(a) he doesn't seem to have any particularly profound values aside from "avoid the discomfort of working" and "it's nice to travel", and
(b) he devoted large amounts of his post to slag off most of the rest of the world (including his ex-wife - and there's of course even more to read, if you're a masochist) in astonishingly adolescent terms. If you're looking for "unkind and uncharitable" takes, you might try rereading the article.
When the subject of your blog post is about your personal life experience, I think that opens you up for public examination. It's not like GP is going around critiquing random HN commentators, or even random public figures.
You're leaving out that he mentioned that a lot of his friends weren't really into their work and used shopping as a way to alleviate that form of suffering, at least that's what he seems to believe.
Maybe I read too much into that part, I've certainly seen it with some of my friends. Some of my friends hate their job, other friends of mine are okay with their job. In any case, it isn't hard to imagine a big group of his friends being unhappy with their job.
After having read this, I kind of come to the realization that some serious research needs to be done to the psychological state of people in general and working. The results are all over the place [1]. For example, Pew Research Center seems to claim that Americans as a whole are pretty satisfied with their jobs [2], whereas an article about a Gallup poll claims that 85% isn't [3].
The question of whether people say they like their jobs is, frankly, moot. As the Hungarian economist used to say, when asked "how are you?", "compared to what"?
More important to this discussion is whether they would be happier if they could instantly retire, and whether this happiness would last. People like to complain about their jobs, but a lot of retirees subsequently complain about being bored.
Also, I wouldn't read too much into his commentary about other people. By a strange coincidence, he seemed surrounded by cardboard cutouts, designed to prove him right about things. If you were ever curious about the opinions of a Holden Caulfield who didn't really grow up, but worked in tech for 18 years, you could find a lot of answers on his blog.
His blog is morbidly fascinating. His previous post is a long, very detailed assessment of the prospect of Trump ending Obamacare - couched 100% in terms of what it means for him and people exactly like him. Then there was a huge post doing amateur psychoanalysis of his ex, with a heaping helping of Myers-Briggs types and (I kind you not) the Houses from Harry Potter. That's as far as I got.
Would love to hear his ex's version of all this...
One can only wonder what the literary world has lost, given that he abandoned the project of being a writer.
Readit News
Retiring at 30 sounds great, but no one's life goes exactly to plan for next the 30-40 years until traditional retirement age. People change, expectations evolve, possessions wear out and need to be replaced. Living frugally may be fun when you're in your 20s, but it's not so fun when as you get older and your friends want to do things that require money (vacations, hobbies, dining out). Even worse when your romantic partner has different goals in life, as happened here.
Many of the leanFIRE stories have their roots in people who hate their jobs so much that the only thing that motivates them is early retirement. They grind through the job the hate, counting days on their leanFIRE countdown until they can quit working and never look back.
Most of these people would be much happier if they simply invested time and energy into finding a job they enjoy, or at least one that doesn't make them miserable. Even if it requires a pay cut and a later retirement date, it's much better to spend your time doing something you don't hate than it is to grind out a bad job in misery just to reach dreams of early retirement sooner.
It seems like such a nihilistic way to live. You're just floating along the stream of life. Things worked out for you, but you have no further passion or inclination to improve the world? No problems you could set yourself to solving?
As much criticism as Elon Musk gets (he's certainly not perfect), the path he took is the only thing that makes sense to me in that position. He didn't take his wealth and begin doing angel investing in new CRUD app startups, he wanted to solve real problems humanity faces.
Not everybody has that amount of money or skill, but it's surprising to me how many people's alternative to having a day job they're forced to do is just complete leisure time 100% of the time or picking up arbitrary hobbies.
In this guy's post, like with writing, it sounds like he wasn't actually passionate about it. There are plenty of places to post serialized fiction as you write in online and get feedback (Royal Road, Substack) but it sounded like the measuring stick he was judging himself was becoming a very popular/famous author, not actually writing great stories. It seems just like a different version of the treadmill he was talking about with other people.
> It seems like such a nihilistic way to live. You're just floating along the stream of life. Things worked out for you, but you have no further passion or inclination to improve the world? No problems you could set yourself to solving?
You seem to assume or take for granted that releasing music for an external purpose, improving the world, solving problems, etc have inherent value. I would 100% disagree with that. I don't think there's any greater objective value to raising orphans than there is to playing video games for the rest of your life. If somebody wants to make music and never release it, then they should have the freedom to do so. Your comment is on par with criticizing people for living meaninglessly just for not having children, when not everybody values or enjoys having children.
> complete leisure time 100% of the time or picking up arbitrary hobbies.
I'm at the opposite end: I'm surprised how many people care about solving problems or things like that. I couldn't care less. If I were to win the lottery or something, I'd immediately erase my identity and go live in a castle/farm in a forest somewhere, making music I'll never release etc until I die, etc
And I say this as someone who has made a major career change during their life.
I rather doubt that you would choose Elon's life either -- especially if you were in his financial position.
(Happy to stand corrected, since I don't know you.)
And why should they? I'm no fan of trust fund babies who coast by on life, but really, why does anyone have to justify their lives by doing something to improve the world? What are you and I accomplishing right now?
Maybe it's just the severe burnout talking, but I for one would love to just stop everything and exist for a while with no tangible goals or requirements of me. Besides that, what good is a person who did the leanFIRE thing really supposed to do? The whole idea is to live cheaply, they don't have a lot of money to invest in making the world better. They have all the time in the world, sure, but if you're putting 40+ hours into "making the world better" (Whatever that means to you) then are you really retired? Or are you just doing the same thing as everyone else but living a much more meager life for the sake of it.
Nope! I know who I am and what I’m capable of.
If I could, I would do literally nothing besides wake up, go to the gym, go to the coffee shop, read, watch TV, and surf the internet until I die. I know this because I took several years off and did exactly this until I ran out of money.
Best years of my life and it’s not even close.
I intend to "Fat-FIRE", and the only reason I don't retire now is to see how much I can leverage my position to do crazy shit at massive scale. Paradoxically, this sets me up for larger windfalls because I can take risks that my peers do not take.
I am an early retiree, who sometimes thinks it would be nice to get back into the industry just to steer or at least nudge the projects I still care about very much into the direction I'd like to seem them to go. And because they are corporate-driven (hello, Microsoft, Facebook, and Google!) it is just too hard to do from the outside.
Let's see where I can get to...
At first I thought I can do lean FIRE, because I was never a big spender in the first place. As I get older I started to gradually spend more on things and frankly enjoy the ability to do so as I earned more. For example, not having to take the crappiest flight to get some where. Recently as I get older, I question if I want to even retire early at all. Now I'm shifting more towards "I want to be financially independent so I'm not reliant on a job, but I still want to work".
So things change, and things change more and faster than we anticipate. And this isn't even accounting for externalities outside of our control.
Were you reading FIRE blogs or extreme frugality blogs? Or maybe I can just ask "how do you define extreme frugality?" (I think of myself as kind of frugal, and planning to have the choice to avoid compulsory paid work before I'm 50, but I also live in one of the most expensive areas of the United States outside of big cities / California, with somewhat regular trips to Disney World and other countries.) But a blog like earlyretirementextreme.com isn't focused on high earners cutting down on consumption and retiring early (that's MrMoneyMustache.com) - it's a version of extreme frugality and self-reliance (and adaptability regardless of changing life circumstances.)
> bare minimum savings
I assume by this you mean "leanFIRE" as in "just enough of a nest egg to retire with 25x your annual expenses and everything goes perfectly?!" Of course, that sounds like a recipe for disaster, and I think in some cases it's a bit of a "oh I can quit my stupid job at the exact moment I hit this magic number" mentality, but a misunderstanding of putting a real plan in place for a future that is filled with variables. Depending on the blogs you frequented, they could be "copycat" blogs that just took the juicy headlines from more in-depth blogs and throwing up quick articles so they can get some ad revenue.
Any idea, handled poorly, is going to either come off unappealing or be riddled with shortcomings. That doesn't mean the original idea can't work (and it does for some - some by luck, others by proper strategy.)
I don't think there is such a job, not at 8 hours * 5 days a week. Even if it's unfair towards people who have to work longer and harder - I find it grueling. And I believe it's not due to job (I'm a software developer) - I'm pretty sure if I did my favorite hobby full time for a year I'd start resenting it. It's not for lack of vacation either - 5 weeks/year is just enough to get me to baseline where I'm ready to enjoy proper vacation.
3 days a week * 4 hours + 2 months completely off each year could work nicely, but that's not available in a regular job. It'd mean switching to consulting and my selling skills are non-existent. So I'll probably grind for 2-3 years then take 1-2 years off. I did that once already and the main takeaway was that I could easily and gladly not work ever again, if I could afford it.
There are some ways around it:
- Have several hobbies and just do whichever depending on your mood and desire at the time. They are hobbies, not jobs; you don't HAVE to do them if you currently don't want to. It's OK to abandon some of your hobbies for years. (There is a good amount of stories about book authors who start seriously writing -- and become famous and financially successful -- at 50+ years old).
- Don't do anything "meaningful" for a while. I have found huge inner peace and improved mental health by just being completely useless for 3 months between contracts. Ironically, during these "useless" times of mine I've progressed hugely on numerous personal interests (some of which overlap with me being a programmer but are relating to things that aren't popular there).
- [Re-]Discover true leisure time: walks in nature and admiring the scenery, boat trips, lying on the beach, traveling to exotic locations (OK, this one is almost impossible at the moment), and many others. We don't live to only work.
What stings (as I can't help but empathize with the author's feelings) in reading this blog is that it sounds like they were very aligned five years ago, but she discovered a gradual growing miscontent only once they tried the early-retiree life.
Not sure if there's a possible fix there, other than trying to compromise (only one of them working, which would probably just lead to more growing apart)
Sadly these things can and do happen. But we the people usually make it much worse by holding on to relationships that are past their date, for much longer than it's healthy.
The author is a literal millionaire living (when not working in a well-paid job) on what is roughly the median income for their state. This is neither extremely frugal nor bare minimum savings.
They downgraded from "upper-class lifestyle with upper-class work" to "middle-class lifestyle without work". Not exactly going poor.
> assuming their lifestyle would never change and nothing would ever go wrong.
They bet that nothing would go several-hundreds-of-thousands-dollars wrong. Sounds like a fairly safe bet. If it's likely that you'll get into a situation that costs you that much, having a job doesn't guarantee much either.
[0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/comments/58j8...
Many people reach FIRE without much energy, it's an incredibly easy "set and forget" style of life. Many use its concepts to get in a position where they can find a job they enjoy.
This skips over the part where the individual might want to be entrepreneurial and needs the funds to be in a position to take such a risk. Or the job they love is inherently in a shitty position (passion industries teeming with bad conditions), so it's a "pick your poison situation" until they have leverage, and in many cases, both poisons make them feel miserable anyway.
The idea that there's a job out there for every person they'll enjoy doing as long as they put in the energy, is an incredibly idealistic and even privileged mindset we should be getting rid of.
If some of my friends spent half as much time learning new skills as they do saving pennies - I think they'd be much better off. And especially because they don't even enjoy most of the ways they're saving money! Long commutes, cooking all their meals, doing all their dishes. Especially being overworked by a dead-end job they hate!
Spend your money, invest your time.
I know it's easier said than done.
Isn't the status quo of working a 9-5 and saving ~10% (aka spending 90%) of your salary exactly this? Having ~25x living expenses saved up seems like a significantly less fragile position than you're suggesting. Even this "failure" case, the author ended his 6 years of not earning a penny with more money than he started. And he was able to get a job when he decided he wanted one.
> Most of these people would be much happier if they simply invested time and energy into finding a job they enjoy
Lots of people don't enjoy things that are necessarily financially viable. Putting in a finite amount of time to free yourself to pursue interests without concern for the financials makes a lot of sense.
So that you could invest time into finding a way to spend your time that pays less (or nothing) but which you enjoy?
You should checkout /r/fatFire
Even if only age 55 rather than 65, realizing I was not tied to one number, pre-specified by society, has been immensely valuable.
https://www.reddit.com/r/fatFIRE/
Now, I work much harder, have kids, and responsibilities. That being said, I know the work I do is meaningful, and serves many people. We have significant savings. Though living in a big city means we can't retire early. That's beside the point though: I motivate myself to work because it is meaningful. The same with kids: I don't do things because I enjoy them, I do them in the service of my kids and my family. Reading the story in the OP, I get the sense that the OP hasn't made that transition to thinking about work in terms of serving others. A happy life is not a life of retirement, its a life of meaning. What was meaningful once (aiming for retirement), loses its meaning once it has been attained. You have to keep moving forward. This is not about "Keeping Up," but about stepping outside of oneself, and learning to put others ahead, even if it requires personal suffering. (Something parents of young children know very well.)
I also joke about wanting to do nothing for a year. About 2-3 weeks in I'm ready to take on a full workload again. I once was unemployed for 2 months, I thought it'd be a vacation. I hated it after the first month.
Now I have a better nest egg, but I also know my tastes mean I can't retire.
Who said anything about happiness. We are mixing two different things 'retirement' and 'happiness'. Happiness is an emotional state, and Retirement is a financial state. Happiness/Sadness can apply to any situation. It has nothing to do with wealth or financial independence.
Retirement is about having enough to not worry about being in need of a job to just keep your head above water.
Retirement is just worth the independence and availability of options.
you figured out the meaning of life for everyone?
maybe you are rationalizing your own lack of freedom from work and responsibility as "serving others" and secret to happiness. Which is fine but its a bit weird to say that applies to everyone and ppl who aren't doing have just not made that "transition" to a life of meaning.
I am glad You figured out formula of happiness for your life don't you think everyone else has the same freedom to figure out their own path and formula. Why do you think everyone should follow your universal formula.
While retirement is cool, I think life goes better without thinking too much about it. Try to work at a job that doesn't suck ass, try to have hobbies and free time, focus on family etc, invest your savings, don't buy stupid stuff. The level of financial freedom will increase in your life just automatically if you live rationally.
> I looked at other FI bloggers who quit work and retired. They all appeared to be blissful. Stoic. Confident and without reservations. Since I ran into problems myself, I started to feel like I was defective. Like something was wrong with me and that’s why it didn’t work so well. Maybe it has to do with my personality (a nerdy introvert). Or it could be because I’m not trying to sell product and make money off of my choices, like almost everyone else who blogs about FI seems to.
There always seemed like a potentially strange conflict of interest with many of the FI bloggers who are ostensibly "retired early", but still earn a significant amount of money from their FI blogs. Which isn't to say they shouldn't be earning that money, but it does bring up questions about some of the conclusions that they make. (There's also a bit of a groupthink or even cult-like mentality among some of them, particularly in the MMM sphere.)
I hate when people confuse not wanting to belong to and impress a particular community with not wanting to belong to or impress ANY community.
He is just like everyone else, just in a different group.
I think they're somewhat non-conformist by posting about negatives and the fact that life will push you in unpredictable directions - even when you've done the maths.
But maybe that's because I tend to agree with the commentary around 'other people needing to "keep up" with the rest of society'.
Maybe he took those FI blogs seriously and dedicated himself to reaching that goal, and he did. And then people who never tried say "he got lucky".
I enjoy working. I find purpose and meaning it. I do not let it dominate my life, but without it I would feel incomplete. I run my own business now, and that is very satisfying - but even when I was a corporate consultant I found a lot of enjoyment from spending time with my coworkers, solving problems, and having something to do every day.
For me anyways, a nice salary is also a form of validation and affirmation. That the effort you're expending is valued - at least by someone.
I was thinking the same thing: geeze, isn't there anything between virtue signalling early retirement and conspicuous consumption?
Yes, some people spend money on Louis Vuitton bags and fancy cars to show off. But other things people spend money on do legitimately make their life better, more comfortable, or happier. A house in a quieter neighborhood helps me sleep better. A bigger house, where my spouse and I can each have our private space helps our relationship. Clothes that fit well make me more comfortable. A reliable car makes my life less stressful. Are these things "keeping up" or "conspicuous consumption" just because I was not absolutely required to buy them? Is my partner a bad person if she'd rather have a quiet hotel room than stay in a hostel?
I do think that it's worthwhile to be introspective about how you spend your money, and if the things you're spending your money on actually do make you happier. But this black and white thinking is really counterproductive.
But to further clarify -
My point was that work/income generation can add meaning and validation for lots of folks. Even the author hints at this - his writing wasn't taking off, no one was reading what he wrote, and he was getting discouraged.
I dabble making music. I'm pretty good at it by hobbyist standards, but if I ever tried it "full time" no one would pay me and I'd never get huge. That's just the breaks in creative endeavors. My point is that I'd need a heck of a lot more validation and affirmation in my life than making music no one listens to. I suspect the same is true of the author and his writing.
Losing the status of being a higher up at a successful (small) company was extremely painful, especially because I didn't realize how much of a perk of the job it was. Like many others in this thread, I realized work provided a venue to solve interesting problems with interesting people, and I knew I would miss that (but also knew there were other, non-work ways to scratch that itch). Looking back, though, the ego/status aspect was probably the biggest benefit, and I never admitted that to myself.
Fairly soon into retirement, I made the choice to address the issue by decreasing my ego needs, rather than pursuing another high status non-work position. In some sense, it wasn't too hard to do (though I did find that I had to give up programming for a while, since it turned out that, despite my love of math and puzzle solving, the real biggest draw of programming was the megalomaniacal sense of being a god in a universe of your own creation). The issue is, I went too far, and experienced pretty significant depersonalization, which, from the inside wasn't terrible, but I think made me too weird to interact with my family and friends.
I've currently accepted more ego back into my life (hence this self-centered posting, for instance), but kept it below the old levels. I'm happy with my life, and find it much more even keeled and comfortable than when I was working, though I still miss the emotional highs of succeeding in a big work project.
Anyway, I think what really got me to log on here and post this was seeing the various other posters claiming work as a source of meaning and maybe poo pooing the OP, a bit, for giving it up. Now, on the one hand, I'm not really disagreeing, but I just wanted to add the nuance that, for me, turns out most of that meaning was not coming from nice pro-social things like cooperating with a team and working on interesting problems, but mostly just base status drive and ego. Now, I don't know how much my experience applies to the general population and most jobs, but I have a feeling it probably does apply to a fair chunk of the readers of this forum.
In both cases, 6-12 month long projects ended with basically being thrown in the bin. So, yeah, you can imagine any sense of purpose I may have assigned myself by being involved in these projects was an illusion. Nope - I just enjoyed getting good at something!
Then I spent six months unemployed, and spent some of that doing hobbies I enjoyed... even getting half decent at some things I've tried before. But by the end of the period, given the constraints of the pandemic, I was missing that feeling of doing something on work days that felt like accomplishment. I definitely think for anyone retiring, early or otherwise, you will have to spend a period of decompression and adjustment, either learning to accept consumption over creation, or finding new ways to create. You'll need to find a new balance, and you'll have a lot more time to do it.
I see this. Props for understanding yourself!
The number of status updates I see from former work colleagues who, pretty transparently, just want to Let You Know they are Still Really Important is astonishing -- especially ones close to normal retirement age. My reaction is something akin to (e.g) "what have you done wrong that you're over 60 and are still climbing the greasy pole?"
But it takes effort to check out of the game. I felt _exactly_ the same internal pressure after leaving one job to "update my status" once I started my own, next, Really Important Role - even when doing so was blatantly at odds with my values.
It takes a lot of knowing yourself and your own motivations to come to terms with this. It reminds me a great deal of Kung Fu!
‘Have you no ambition, Master Po?’ -Disciple Caine ‘Only one. Five years hence, it is my wish to make a pilgrimage to the Forbidden City. It is a place where even priests receive no special status. There in the Temple of Heaven, will be a festival The full moon of May. It will be the thirteenth day of the fifth month in the Year of the Dog.’ -Master Po ‘That is not such a great ambition.’ -Disciple Caine ‘But it is ambition, nonetheless. Who among us is without flaw?’ -Master Po
I wish there was a way to find a more balanced work culture (in the USA, other countries may have this already) to be able to continue solving interesting problems with interesting people, as you say, but also live life outside work.
I'd give anything to be able to work maybe 15-20 hours a week at half or a even a third of my salary. But employers will only take 60 hours a week of full-steam burnout, or zero.
Mind you I know several people who did that for a while and then decided insurance software is soul sucking and so they took a pay cut to work for someone else with more meaning in life. (But they didn't leave des Moines so still 40 hour weeks )
I did get into open source work, for a while, contributing to improving the software I used the most. Unfortunately, that mainly resulted in work on Chrome and vscode, and other pieces of software owned by giant, richer-then-god corporations, so the same frustrations applied :p
I immediately stopped meditating all together and slowly got my sense of self back. Since then I only briefly meditate when I feel I can use the benefits of it (e.g. enhanced emotional perception or more focus etc.).
I actually did try joining a meditation group, but I had a very bad time. I have a loud and constant inner monologue, but when I calmed my thoughts, all I experienced was primal negative emotion. Some mixture of shame and terror. I don't mean this literally, but it felt like a demon was trying to posses my mind. The instructor was a very nice person, but not a professional, so maybe I could have had a better time with a better guide.
Finally, I've stopped trying so hard to suppress my ego. I'm very curious what living in a society that supports low ego would be like, but the one I live in doesn't. Ego has many used (especially in a corporate setting, it's a tremendous asset), and the experiences of ego and dopamine are part of the richness of life, even if, when viewed at a society level, they often seem so dysfunctional and defector-ish.
I do like the conclusion though, we're social animals, and the issue with early retirement is that you're the only one with free time during work hours. They were lucky to have a partner to share their time with, but in my humble opinion, it isn't healthy for a relationship to depend on a single person that heavily. The lack of time spent with others means this one person is all you have to distract yourself, and I think that puts stress on a relationship.
I've never tried FI and early retirement, it's never really been something I've found appealing. That said, I've heard some takes on FI where they say it isn't so much that you'd stop working, but that you no longer depend on work. That means once you have financial freedom from work, you're free to see work as a hobby, and be much pickier about what work you do, where you work, how you allow yourself to be treated at work, etc. Since you know you can walk out at any time, since work isn't something you depend on. It gives you the big end of the stick in negotiating with employers, and that in itself is freeing. I think if I were to do FI, that's the type of FI I'd be interested in personally.
Best Alternative To Negotiation Agreement
I've only seen this acronym in a negotiation course at uni, I'm sure not everyone knows what it means ;-)
You can get this if your skills are currently in demand and have a few months of expenses saved up. You don't need to get to financial independence to have a healthy relationship with your job.
The second is a lot more relaxing.
- LeanFIRE in 2015 (~30Kish USD annual spend)
- first couple years were great, in the third year cracks started to show
- they and their partner's goals were no longer aligned and they ended up splitting
- OP was diagnosed with a genetic condition that changed their expenses and lifestyle
- Ended up getting a job again at the end, but while "retired" their net worth actually increased by 20%
Deleted Comment
"To me, these people on their exercise machines were standing still — nothing was happening in their lives". Um, ok.
One of the richest and busiest people I have ever met - like serious 0.1%-percenter rich - is always off hiking in Papua New Guinea and spending shit-tons of money getting wells dug in crappy areas and fighting dysentery and improving the lot of young girls by funding schools and so on. If that person gave me shit for my materialistic lifestyle it'd be one thing. I also know plenty of broke people who do incredibly righteous and interesting stuff, and I'd happily cop the same line from them.
This bozo? Not so much. It's like Holden Caulfield, but middle aged. He barely mentions anything outside himself aside from his partners, old and new (aside from the vague genuflection to CO2 as a justification for his lifestyle, which sits rather poorly with "A trip to Hawaii. Another to Portugal and France" if he's aiming for secular sainthood over an allegedly low-emission lifestyle).
In a shocking development, life spent as a bizarrely young version of one of those old retired people who doesn't do anything beyond travel and putter around isn't that great.
(a) he doesn't seem to have any particularly profound values aside from "avoid the discomfort of working" and "it's nice to travel", and
(b) he devoted large amounts of his post to slag off most of the rest of the world (including his ex-wife - and there's of course even more to read, if you're a masochist) in astonishingly adolescent terms. If you're looking for "unkind and uncharitable" takes, you might try rereading the article.
Maybe I read too much into that part, I've certainly seen it with some of my friends. Some of my friends hate their job, other friends of mine are okay with their job. In any case, it isn't hard to imagine a big group of his friends being unhappy with their job.
After having read this, I kind of come to the realization that some serious research needs to be done to the psychological state of people in general and working. The results are all over the place [1]. For example, Pew Research Center seems to claim that Americans as a whole are pretty satisfied with their jobs [2], whereas an article about a Gallup poll claims that 85% isn't [3].
[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=statistics+us+people+unhappy...
[2] https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2016/10/06/3-how-a...
[3] https://www.staffsquared.com/blog/why-85-of-people-hate-thei....
More important to this discussion is whether they would be happier if they could instantly retire, and whether this happiness would last. People like to complain about their jobs, but a lot of retirees subsequently complain about being bored.
His blog is morbidly fascinating. His previous post is a long, very detailed assessment of the prospect of Trump ending Obamacare - couched 100% in terms of what it means for him and people exactly like him. Then there was a huge post doing amateur psychoanalysis of his ex, with a heaping helping of Myers-Briggs types and (I kind you not) the Houses from Harry Potter. That's as far as I got.
Would love to hear his ex's version of all this...
One can only wonder what the literary world has lost, given that he abandoned the project of being a writer.