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Building a vision of life without work (2015)

livingafi.com

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Re: Building a vision of life without work (2015)

#141

Post by handrous »

herbst wrote: post #115
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #3

This is one of the biggest missing pieces in internet FIRE discussions. So much of the FIRE discourse is about not working that many don’t realize that they’re going to be extremely bored with 16 hours to fill every day. Worse, their friends are all busy with their lives. It’s actually a common failure point of FIRE post-mittens that didn’t work out. Especially with couples, where it’s more likely that at least one p…

What I don't get about fire is that I want to enjoy my life equally now and when I am old. I have no issues filling time without getting bored, but I don't feel like wasting any time of my current life in a job I don't really enjoy just so I may enjoy life more later? However I also believe that fire is a symptom and not a solution. It seems to be mostly popular in countries with little or non existent pension securi…

> However I also believe that fire is a symptom and not a solution. It seems to be mostly popular in countries with little or non existent pension security.

In the US, it's also largely a fantasy thanks to our uniquely-shitty healthcare system, unless you're actually rich. Most of the frugal-FIRE schemes will fall apart as soon as someone in your family gets sick.

Re: Building a vision of life without work (2015)

#142

Post by disintegore »

mmcdermott wrote: post #69
disintegore wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe the Leninist notion of communism incorporated the idea of "not working for a living" either, but I could be wrong.

The root difference between communism and capitalism comes down to their respective views of human nature. Communism views human as fundamentally decent but are made lower by the exploitation of those with capital and power. Capitalism, on the other hand, views human beings as lacking this decent base and presupposes that they will not produce things of mutual benefit without motivation. The critique of communism tha…

That would imply that the individual in question cannot imagine any incentive to work other than the profit motive, which in my eyes is not only an extremely depressing notion to contemplate, but also one that falls apart very rapidly if you consider that human society predates capitalism by thousands of years, and that even within capitalist society itself there are countless examples of the opposite.

Re: Building a vision of life without work (2015)

#143

Post by paulcole »

mgh2 wrote: post #110
zoba wrote: post #67

I was 2nd employee at a unicorn startup and have been on a work-hiatus for almost a year. Now, I live amongst Amish people in the country. My biggest insight has been a mindset change. Previously my underlying approach to life looked like: "I will do X which will enable me to do Y so that I can finally do Z." I now approach my days with "What will make me happy?" This is an experiment I'm performing. A structured lif…

We were built to work, to have purpose. Having meaningful work is key - this is what the FIRE movement misunderstood. By meaningful, I mean to someone other your yourself or your extended self (family). Our purpose is to serve others, not ourselves.

I definitely wasn't built to have a purpose.

I took a 3-year early retirement and didn't do anything for anyone but myself and loved every minute of it. I watched TV, went to the movies, read books, went to the gym, rode my bicycle, and that was it. Had no need for anything else.

If I could do that without having a job, I'd happily do it for the rest of my life with no problems.

Re: Building a vision of life without work (2015)

#145

Post by metalex »

kevinwang wrote: post #5

This person also posted an amazing, unvarnished update recently (about 5-6 years later): https://livingafi.com/2021/03/17/the-2021-early-retirement-u...

This article makes me really sad. I know this is just my perspective, but this person isn't living -- they're just existing. What are they striving for? Consuming media?

Re: Building a vision of life without work (2015)

#146

Post by neogodless »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #137
neogodless wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will not be bored when I am not compelled to work. I was unemployed for six months during the pandemic. Boy did I fail to be bored! I overhauled my garage, building a French cleat system and organizing all of my tools. I built a movie/reading nook for my spouse, with a sliding bookshelf door. I caught up on cutting and splitting firewood for winter. I played board games, cooked, baked, rode bike almost every day, s…

> I overhauled my garage, building a French cleat system and organizing all of my tools. I built a movie/reading nook for my spouse, with a sliding bookshelf door. I caught up on cutting and splitting firewood for winter. I played board games, cooked, baked, rode bike almost every day, sat in the cool breeze overlooking nature, sat by the fire pit and boy, was I not bored. Your post looks a lot like what I did along…

It's technically true, but also hard to do in reality.

Right now, I barely have time to make coffee before my first meeting. My energy levels after sitting at the computer for 8+ hours are not great. The moments where the weather is "just right" for a lot of activities are severely hampered by the time I must be by the computer.

I know, because I'm way behind on firewood again. There are some mornings where the weather would be OK for it, but they usually don't fall on Saturday for some reason. Or we have plans to go on a camping trip that Saturday, so again I skip that task.

This adds up for each instance of those things. (I've seen it take weeks to build something simple... while unemployed I took on much bigger projects over much shorter time frames.)

Sure, I agree that during your working career seek out jobs that don't overly impede your autonomy. But if you can wipe out 40 hours every week that is doing so, suddenly you have much more freedom.

With that freedom, you spend each day, all day, choosing among the things you want to be doing. While working, it's much harder to take a couple of hours in the evening or your precious weekends, and splitting them up into all the things you want to do, and many of them get left behind.

Re: Building a vision of life without work (2015)

#147

Post by fullshark »

Aperocky wrote: post #37
temp8964 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The conclusion came to me is that extreme working and extreme no-working are both bad in the long run. All you need is a work-family-life balance. I am also glad that the author now opens the door for getting married and even having a kid. Work, spouse, kids, the traditional way of life have been explored and chosen by human being for at least thousands of years. The psychological / economic needs for living with a f…

> slowly or quickly realize that you are just a regular human being like everybody else. The earlier the better, one of the best revelation that I had is that 'nobody actually cares about me that much'. So much of the peer/social pressure are self inflicted.

Well hopefully you surround yourself with a smallish circle of people who care about you! But yes all your high school / college classmates / coworkers are off living their lives and not thinking about you.

Re: Building a vision of life without work (2015)

#148

Post by disintegore »

Koshkin wrote: post #49
disintegore wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe the Leninist notion of communism incorporated the idea of "not working for a living" either, but I could be wrong.

This is simply a consequence of all goods being available to anyone free of charge.

Goods which, presumably, appear into existence through pure magic.

Re: Building a vision of life without work (2015)

#149

Post by aboodman »

zoba wrote: post #67

I was 2nd employee at a unicorn startup and have been on a work-hiatus for almost a year. Now, I live amongst Amish people in the country. My biggest insight has been a mindset change. Previously my underlying approach to life looked like: "I will do X which will enable me to do Y so that I can finally do Z." I now approach my days with "What will make me happy?" This is an experiment I'm performing. A structured lif…

I noticed the same thing when I stopped working ft. I was surprisingly bad at predicting my own interests and what would make me feel happy day to day.

It was almost as if I didn’t know myself, and in retrospect I suppose that was true.

After several years I’ve started working again but in my own way (roci.dev). I’m a lot better at predicting what activities will feel good, and managing my time so that end of day/week I feel deeply good about how it was spent.

Strongly recommend ^ approach of “rolling with it” for several years and trying not to pass judgement with you conscious mind on where your unconscious is taking you.

Best of luck getting to know yourself.

Re: Building a vision of life without work (2015)

#150

Post by ar_lan »

mgh2 wrote: post #110
zoba wrote: post #67

I was 2nd employee at a unicorn startup and have been on a work-hiatus for almost a year. Now, I live amongst Amish people in the country. My biggest insight has been a mindset change. Previously my underlying approach to life looked like: "I will do X which will enable me to do Y so that I can finally do Z." I now approach my days with "What will make me happy?" This is an experiment I'm performing. A structured lif…

We were built to work, to have purpose. Having meaningful work is key - this is what the FIRE movement misunderstood. By meaningful, I mean to someone other your yourself or your extended self (family). Our purpose is to serve others, not ourselves.

Most FIRE people don't just stop working. They just stop working boring, 8-5's.

For example, I really want to open my own cidery. But doing so would be such a massive paycut that it wouldn't be worth pursuing right now, even though it's ultimately what I want to do.

So, I'm software engineering until I make enough to FIRE, after which I can pursue that dream.

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