Ok, but just imagine for a moment that working a job doesn't make you happy. Consider that most employment arrangements aren't all that flexible. You can't just suddenly decide to disappear for two months because you feel like it, whenever you want, and expect there to be a job waiting for you when you get back.
This extends all the way down into little things. Maybe I'd like to go for a walk right now, but I can't because I have a work meeting in 10 minutes.
I doubt there is anyone in the world who can say they are 100% happy with their job 100% of the time. While you might not be 100% happy 100% of the time in retirement, that is something you can control and change. You generally can't change many of the things about a job that make you unhappy.
I just feel like most people are so socially conditioned to believe that working a job is The Correct Way To Live Your Life that they simply can't imagine anything different.
> I want to be able to work whatever job makes me happy without feeling the need to be competing for the highest salary.
Why does it have to be a job? Why can't you just do things that make you happy? Why is it necessary that happiness falls into the narrow range of an employer-employee (or freelancer-client) relationship?
I get where you’re coming from, but getting to a place of being truly retired with enough money to live indefinitely, and account for most disasters like the one in this post, is much more difficult. Especially with healthcare in the US.
I’m not saying having enough money to retire forever isn’t better. I get that you have even more options. But why not also be semi-FI all along the way and afford yourself those things that make you happy, even if it means you save more slowly and retire a bit less early. It’s about the right balance.
I’d rather take 3-months of unpaid leave to backpack Europe at age 30 than skip the trip in a saving-frenzy to retire. That same backpacking trip would be way less enjoyable at age 40, or even impossible with kids.
Plus, my job does make me happy — I know it may not forever, which is why I save so much money. But assuming I keep enjoying work, it doesn’t hurt to keep making money even after RE. I really just see FI as giving yourself options.
I don’t foresee it being a huge event when I hit my “FIRE number” since I’ll already be living the life that I want.
Oh, absolutely agree. But everyone needs to find that balance for themselves. For some people that balance may truly involve working themselves to near death in their 20s and 30s so they can retire with a more-than-comfortable lifestyle. That's not for me, but I see no problem with someone doing that if that's what they truly want.
I'm lucky that I'll be able to retire soon and still be financially secure against all but the worst medical disasters (agree that the US sucks in this regard), medical disasters that would likely bankrupt me even if I was working (and would likely mean I couldn't work anymore anyway). I know this isn't possible for many people in the FIRE crowd, let alone most people in general. I've also been lucky that I've been able to travel a lot in my 30s and a decent amount in my 20s, despite working hard for most of it. So it's not like I've been all-work-and-no-play up until now; it's a balance I've been mostly happy with (certainly with some exceptions), but I know others might want a different balance (in either direction), and that's ok.
Just a bit on "enjoying work": I really want to make sure we're talking about the same thing. For the most part I enjoy and love the work I do, but overall I don't really enjoy "the job". I don't enjoy the meetings, the process that caters to the lowest common denominator, the politics, the fight to get things done the way I think they should get done. There are definitely some aspects of my current work that I probably couldn't do without all the other stuff (because they require a large organization with considerable financial resources). But there's a lot of it that I could do on my own, or (for example) in a small group of people working on an open source project. Retirement for me doesn't mean I stop being a software developer; it means I stop developing software on an employer's terms, and stop doing it for a profit motive. And if I get temporarily (or even permanently) tired of it, I can simply choose to do something else, on a moment's notice, without financial consequences. I'm not sure if this is the popular definition, but to me "retirement" means I do whatever I want -- including "work" -- without a care toward how it affects my income, and with the ability to shift my priorities on a dime.
This extends all the way down into little things. Maybe I'd like to go for a walk right now, but I can't because I have a work meeting in 10 minutes.
I doubt there is anyone in the world who can say they are 100% happy with their job 100% of the time. While you might not be 100% happy 100% of the time in retirement, that is something you can control and change. You generally can't change many of the things about a job that make you unhappy.
I just feel like most people are so socially conditioned to believe that working a job is The Correct Way To Live Your Life that they simply can't imagine anything different.
> I want to be able to work whatever job makes me happy without feeling the need to be competing for the highest salary.
Why does it have to be a job? Why can't you just do things that make you happy? Why is it necessary that happiness falls into the narrow range of an employer-employee (or freelancer-client) relationship?