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Ask HN: People who cashed out early and stopped working: What is your life like?

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41–50 of 190 posts

Re: Ask HN: People who cashed out early and stopped working: What is your life like?

#41
I quit tech, moved to a rural area, and bought some farmland at the beginning of the year. got a couple different jobs to learn how to do things. first building polebarns and then framing houses. got to journeyman in framing last month and quit. finishing up my first barn and now i am getting ready to build a greenhouse over the winter. been preparing the soil. will be ready for planting next year.

technically i didnt really quit working. but rather i am free to pursue what i want to do. for example im going to build my own house. and grow and sell organic food. i want to develop technology to improve farming. i enjoy designing and building things in all sorts of mediums. i like working, but i have an entrepreneurial spirit. and in order to feel fulfilled i have to pursue my own ventures.

Re: Ask HN: People who cashed out early and stopped working: What is your life like?

#42

I'm far from retiring, but I always take a break between jobs. It used to be only 2 months, then last time it was 6 months. I'm very happy to be in tech because it allows us for that. I don't decide beforehand how much time I'm taking, instead I just reassess myself "am I still productive? Am I still enjoying doing nothing?" When the answer is no that's when I get back to work. I love DIY so I've used that time to re…

the weekends are a pretty good picture of how we'd behave at retirement.

Interesting, thanks for the insight. I've also heard that, your teenage hobbies are another source of where you might find your passion in retirement. What did you do for fun as a teenager, and how does that compare to what you do during your breaks?

Re: Ask HN: People who cashed out early and stopped working: What is your life like?

#43
Not completely retired, but work remotely and only a few hours a week at this point. Stepping back from the rat race at 30 was the greatest thing to ever happen to my life. I'd spent my entire 20s singularly focused on my career and building my skills. When I hit 30 and looked up around me, I realized I'd achieved everything I set out to do but was still miserable and alone in life. Everyone I knew was getting married, having kids, building relationships, and I had completely neglected that aspect of myself for the last 10 years.

Stepping away allowed me to completely reprioritize what mattered to me and what I wanted out of life. I rekindled old friendships and love interests and eventually met my wife. I realized I'd never actually been truly happy before on a consistent basis, and learned what life is actually all about. That money and career success are simply means to an end of living well and loving others.

I feel for people that are always trapped in survival mode because you get stuck in these ruts that become completely impossible to see out of. You end up so shortsighted and focusing on something that doesn't really matter in the end. But life is just a game that's meant to be played for the enjoyment of it. There's no prize at the end, and your score doesn't matter.

Re: Ask HN: People who cashed out early and stopped working: What is your life like?

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know this person? Because I actually love my job, and I feel like if I retired right now it would suck. I would definitely be bored.

This is mind boggling. Bored? You have all your free time to literally do anything you want. You can explore the outdoors. You can learn ANYTHING you want. You could get to know more of the worlds 6 billion people and their cultures. Volunteer, start a new hobby, spend more time with family and friends, work on personal growth, exercise... you have Stockholm syndrome, snap out of it.

Yeah that all sounds nice until you start to budget it. No way I could keep myself busy with the money I have. I guess this question really depends on if you have the financial means to retire _and keep yourself entertained for the rest of your life_. I don't.

> you have Stockholm syndrome, snap out of it

Very rude.

Re: Ask HN: People who cashed out early and stopped working: What is your life like?

#45
I quit before I could finish 6 years as an employee. I enjoyed working on complex projects and I'm proud of several contributions that I often reminiscence even after 7 years of leaving. There were several reasons why I left, for example - losing interest in the field (VLSI), burn out and dislike of corporate work environment.

I didn't have anything planned, which was a huge mistake on my part. Long story [0] short, I was surviving on my earnings from the job for more than 4 years before writing ebooks got me back on track.

I'd say it has been tough going. But even now I can't imagine going back to work.

[0] https://learnbyexample.github.io/my-book-writing-experience/

Re: Ask HN: People who cashed out early and stopped working: What is your life like?

#46

It sucks to be frank. It wasn't quite my choice to take an early retirement. Despite what the pundits say, you are your job.

I have a quote that I put in my office in a prominent place. It says "Work done in the spirit of service is the highest form of worship." I really believe that and try to make my work a force of good. I feel too much work is a bad thing, but too little unfulfilling work is also not good.

Some people feel that if they were sufficiently rich, they will never work. I think one source of this view are the health effects of the sedentary lifestyle associated with tech, and I respect people who say that. It's all to common for people to be overworked in tech, so I understand people who want to exit for that reason too.

Still others, don't really enjoy work at all and would exit the workforce if given the opportunity. I respect that view too but it's not for me.

Because even if I had unlimited financial; resources I NEED to still work. I believe work, especially the kind that you feel is helping people and results in deep concentration called flow is beneficial for my mental health.

If I stopped working and entered a perma-vacation, I would go out of my mind. There are only so many golf courses, and so many days you can wake up late, before I would be bored out of my mind. When I go on vacation, I enjoy it and need it. But after about a week, I start to get bored and to miss work. I need a challenge.

There is a nice documentary called Born Rich by Jamie Johnson (one of the heirs to the Johnson & Johnson empire's wealth) in which he films the sons and daughters of billionaires (it's on YouTube). What I found fascinating is the happiest ones seemed to be those that applied themselves by working or in one case applying themselves in academia all the way to a PhD.

Even if I stopped my current start-up, I think I would find myself spending a few months catching up on technologies I didn't have the chance to catch up on, and imagine I would just start a new start-up after that.

Re: Ask HN: People who cashed out early and stopped working: What is your life like?

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don’t listen to this. These are the words of someone who allowed work to destroy the part of themselves that had their own hopes and dreams. Only a shell that could take directions was left.

Do you know this person? Because I actually love my job, and I feel like if I retired right now it would suck. I would definitely be bored.

A job being your identity is a health challenge to be worked through with a therapist. Enjoy your job, for sure, but you make it your identity is to create expectations that cannot be met when unavoidable life transitions occur. A job is what you do, not who you are.

https://hbr.org/2019/12/what-happens-when-your-career-become...

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/wealth/earn/why-your-id...

https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2021/10/05/career-job-work-i...

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/06/style/work-life-balance-t...

https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2021/09/self-obje...

Re: Ask HN: People who cashed out early and stopped working: What is your life like?

#48

I quit tech, moved to a rural area, and bought some farmland at the beginning of the year. got a couple different jobs to learn how to do things. first building polebarns and then framing houses. got to journeyman in framing last month and quit. finishing up my first barn and now i am getting ready to build a greenhouse over the winter. been preparing the soil. will be ready for planting next year. technically i didn…

This is kind of the dream for me. Retire and live in a farm.

Re: Ask HN: People who cashed out early and stopped working: What is your life like?

#49

I quit tech, moved to a rural area, and bought some farmland at the beginning of the year. got a couple different jobs to learn how to do things. first building polebarns and then framing houses. got to journeyman in framing last month and quit. finishing up my first barn and now i am getting ready to build a greenhouse over the winter. been preparing the soil. will be ready for planting next year. technically i didn…

Serendipitous to read this comment. I was just this morning trying to find a farm share to buy into. If (when!) you make your organic farming dream come true, register and sell on a place like this site: https://www.harvie.farm

Makes it easy for people like me to buy your stuff. Anyways, good luck!

Re: Ask HN: People who cashed out early and stopped working: What is your life like?

#50

It sucks to be frank. It wasn't quite my choice to take an early retirement. Despite what the pundits say, you are your job.

When you are caught in a job you don't much like, time flies, but you are time poor. But may have some money.

I have been out of work for a long while, and family uses up lots of time. But I have always suffered with balance, programming entirely consumes me, and I ebb and flow with it. I feel totally disconnected and disenchanted with it and have no money and lots of debt.

And have no job security or fallback. Given a good manager and the right position I could happily amble along and be a useful asset.

But I am very disillusioned with web work and the industry. And I think web programming is a tremendously wasteful brain drain.

However if I had money and time, my perspective would be totally different!

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