Early-Retirement Update

I’ll add on to the other responses and tell you that for a lot of people getting old sucks and the thing that sucks worse than getting old is being old. Constant pain. Lipoma pressing against your spine means no matter how you sit or lay you feel uncomfortable. It hurts to take a shit, it’s hard to get all the piss out and even when you so you have to clean up the floor and toilet because it dribbled everywhere. You can’t remember the last time you jerked off and don’t care to try because it started hurting every time you ejaculate more than a decade ago. You can’t stand for more than an hour before your back is on fire forcing you back down to your sitting position which is “only” uncomfortable.

If you are reading this do yourself a favor and take your body’s health seriously right now before it’s too late. Exercise every day, get that 30 pounds of fat you jokingly call your dad bod off before it’s too late, go to the doctor and fucking do what they say instead of nodding and convincing yourself you know better and don’t really need to do that. Oh and brush and floss your damn teeth. The above story doesn’t have to be your story but if you sit at your computer all day everyday and don’t take care of yourself it very much can become your story.

>why does anyone have to justify their lives by doing something to improve the world?

There have been a few replies in this vein, and I see where you're coming from based on the way I phrased what I was saying.

I'm not arguing that anybody should be forced by some external entity to do anything. I am advocating for a person in this situation to attempt to cultivate a passion/greater purpose because I believe it's something we need to be fulfilled. The man in this article designed a life for himself that was free from labor, but ultimately unfulfilling in many ways.

And if you need to find that passion, looking to improve society in some way is a great place to start. I can think of a few things in that vein that I would consider focusing on if I was in such a situation, and none of them are as far reaching as "make humanity multi-planetary."

There should be a class of jobs for retirees just working for health care and socialization.

I've taken a few different "retirement" periods in my life, each lasting about 1-2 years.

The first one, I intended to write, but ended up playing World of Warcraft. The second one, I significantly improved my coding skills (I was primarily doing finance immediately before this, and as a result of this period, my career became concentrated in product management + data + BI). The the third one I spent learning to trade. I even flirted with starting a hedge fund for a bit, but have since backed off those ambitions. I'm currently back at a full time job doing data + BI + finance + product for a small startup.

My biggest takeaways from all these experiences:

1. That kind of freedom is challenge in and of itself. It's amazing to have 12-18 months to dig in deep into a new area (I call these my self-directed masters programs). The feeling of freedom and mastery can't be beat--but most people can't sit in a room by themselves 8-10 hours a day and not go crazy or just waste it on distractions. That in itself is a skill. My first attempt ended up in gaming instead of writing, which turned out okay--but I still wonder where I could have ended up if I had my current level of ability to stay on course.

2. No matter what you do, if you go deep into an area, it seems to add to your overall career progression (for example, I got into video-game product management largely because of my year playing WoW). I doubt you can do nothing--or anything--but at least for me, my desire to want to learn something seemed to be guiding light enough.

3. It's really lonely. Like in undergrad or my MBA, I was learning a ton of new stuff--but unlike those times, there were few people in my life to share the journey with. People were either busy/disinterested or much further along. I really wish I had understood the value of being part of a cohort when I had the chance.

4. I should have spent more time working out. At my age now, I can't believe I found it so hard to dedicated 5-10 hours a week for exercise, especially when my body responded so readily to it (compared to now--I guess youth is wasted on the young once again).

5. Going back and forth between these times and full-time jobs is a great way to level-up and then lock in a new backstop for your next career move. Adding in a little consulting also makes the interviewing story better and gives you some real-world problems to tackle with the new skills you're developing.