Ask HN: 27, accidentally became wealthy, lost drive. What should I do?

Basically, you can afford to pay for some external motivation, and you don't need to be motivated to make money, so you can get motivated to work on yourself for a bit.

On top of that I'd try to give yourself something to look forward to after you finish your masters. Maybe book some nice travel, but buy the tickets soon so you know you're really going!

Now you're going to have to get systematic about finding out what you like to do, and make a good list, and when you're feeling depressed, just do one of those things. It'll lift you out the funk. It really works.

What you should not do as view the money as buying you anything other than freedom. Sure buy yourself a nice TV, car, computer, take trips, etc. But don't overdo it, live a human-size life.

One other thing, do not hire a money manager. Just invest in the S&P 500. It's the best investment possible and requires no thought.

Roll with the chances of life.

You worked your arse off for money. And now you have it. It's completed, finished, done. Mission accomplished. Whack at least half of it in stable investments and chill.

You don't need to join Facebook or Google because you don't need their money. You know as well as most of us that they're not doing anything useful or even interesting.

So go and buy that house you wanted. Learn DIY. Learn a language. Travel. Learn to cook. Work out, get a personal trainer. Figure out how a microcontroller works. Garden. Build a car. I don't know, I'm just describing stuff I enjoy.

Do all of the things you couldn't do because you didn't have time. Now you have time and money.

Now life really begins, because now you are free, truly free, to do what _you_ want, and not what others decree upon you for their own benefit. Savour it!

Along the way, I promise you, you will figure out what you truly love.

I hit financial independence in my early 30s (not flashy rich, but sufficient to never work again) and am now 37.

Here's my take:

People get directionless and depressed after winning the lottery. It's a common thing, and you can read a ton of sad stories about it. Also from hitting it big in professional sports, business, whatever. I say that to reassure you that (1) it's not you, it's human nature, (2) you aren't doing anything wrong, and (3) you aren't alone.

Essentially, what has happened (if you'll forgive me for generalizing and guessing) is that you're suddenly suffering *a vacuum of purpose.*

You used to get your purpose from your studies/struggles/work, and now those things have had the legs kicked out from under them.

So on the one hand: fuck! That's a lot of change.

But on the other hand, this was going to happen eventually anyway. Eventually, you were going to retire, or get fired, or get injured, and end up with a lot of time on your hands and the inability to follow the prescribed path. People get bummed out in retirement, too, for the same reason.

So now, what you've got is an opportunity to bring the learning forward: to figure out how you want to live while you've still got maximum optionality.

That's a terrible responsibility and a tremendous luxury.

But it's in no way easy.

The hardest part about your current situation will be the lack of understanding from everyone around you, because they only see the upside. But the downside -- and it's real as hell and hard as hell -- is that you now need to figure out how you want to live, completely unconstrained.

That's a life's work. But it's also a life's meaning. So try stuff.

When I first got free, I learned to sail, bought an old boat, spent 6 months in a boatyard working 10 hour days of manual labor to repair it, and then spent 3 years sailing around the coasts and canals of England, France, and Spain. I thought that was what I wanted. It's what I had always imagined doing if I didn't need to work.

And you know what I learned? That I enjoy working on interesting projects with smart people. And that I enjoy being able to have friends over for dinner parties and board games. So in the years since then, I've been gradually trading off pieces of my freedom for other things that I find more rewarding.

Learning how to live a life is an experimental, experiential, exploratory process. I wish you well with it, though. It's not easy. It's not supposed to be. But it's very, very meanignful.

It's less about deciding how you want to live, and more about discovering how you want to live.

In terms of mundane tips, try to keep the expenses in check for at least a couple years while you give yourself time to explore it. Don't throw yourself into the icy waters of complete overnight lifestyle change. Take your time; the money will still be there. Maybe you'll find new meaning in the journey, and maybe you'll find a new passion in the process. We all need something to be excited about, but sometimes we need to go find it.