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Building a vision of life without work (2015)

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

#381

Post by sershe »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #40
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Got to admit that watching people struggle with the question of what to do without a job to fill their time is just completely wild to me. It is difficult for me to imagine someone who has so little they want to do outside of work that they can't easily find ways to fill up the 8+ hours a day their job takes from them. I have a list of things I'd like to do a mile long that I know I'll never actually find time to do…

> It is difficult for me to imagine someone who has so little they want to do outside of work that they can't easily find ways to fill up the 8+ hours a day their job takes from them It’s not that simple. I felt the same way before I crossed the FIRE threshold and took some time off (mini-FIRE, I guess). It turns out, most of the things I had been putting off weren’t as time consuming as I thought. I found myself reg…

I dunno, I am in the GP camp. I find even the most wasteful pastimes enjoyable, like videogames; recently, I noticed I don't enjoy them as much (compared to e.g. college days or even when I had more relaxing jobs) and after some reflection, realized it's because I have a nagging feeling in the back of my head that I could be spending time better, like working, or training, or reading, or cleaning, or whatever. I.e. I definitely don't find these stale even after 25 years, it's just that I have a tech job, a wife and hobbies, so I don't have time.

And e.g. in college/HS, my results were pretty mediocre (ok, I still got mostly As, but just barely ;)) because I used my "genetic privilege" and built-up "capital" from SOME hard work, I guess, to do the minimum for an A/B, then maximized the time to pursue my own projects or just goof off. I could have probably been a straight-A student but it just never motivated me. In a twisted way in college, it actually helped me professionally, I spent so much time goofing off I realized I have enough time to have a job at the same time :)

I understand not everyone is like that (my wife instantly gets antsy and/or sad without some purpose or if she has a lot of free time), but I'm pretty sure I could fill a few decades at least with each of the things I want to do more, ranging from outdoors to cooking to playing ironman roguelikes to coding... with all of them I could fill centuries if I had the cashflow ;)

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

#382

Post by akshaybhalotia »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #94
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…

> 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?" Great insight that is worth repeating. One of my biggest problems with FIRE discussions is how much they reinforce the idea that retirement is a prerequisite for achieving happiness. This leads a lot of FIRE-minded people to double down…

> For the average FIRE person working a $100-200K/year job

This is not at all "average" in countries outside of the US. Here in India, for example, a $100K job is kinda like winning the lottery.

For reference, going by the exchange rate it equals somewhat close to 7.5M in local currency. Handymen and people in other labour-heavy jobs don't earn this much in their entire life, considering a 30 years of active work life. Only the top 0.01% (yes, we are an extremely populous country) people have that kind of jobs.

Going by the PPP ratio[0] of 21.99, you still need to be earning upwards of 2.2M annual, which is hardly 1% of the population, and majority of them have taken upwards of 8-10 years of work to reach there (which means 1/3rd of work life is gone).

The argument could also be made that buying stuff is cheaper in countries like ours, but that doesn't stand for _good_ quality items. As an example, the laptop you can buy for $1k in the US is far superior to what you can buy for 22k and slightly comparable but still better than what you can buy for 75k. If you are lucky enough with means to import, good luck with ~78% import taxes and duties. You don't make these purchases often, but when you do it breaks you. Things like dishwasher, vacuum cleaners, etc are so much more common in the US and almost considered a basic necessity whereas owing to cheap labour (and traditional lifestyle) we subscribe to househelp, which isn't really "cheap" or scalable and the cost of these items is high too.

All of this, to say that

> they might be better off scaling back to a sustainable 40hr/week job

is neither practical nor helps in a poor country where an "average" person is working more than half their lives just to make ends meet.

[0]: https://data.oecd.org/conversion/purchasing-power-parities-p...

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

#383

Post by akshaybhalotia »

akshaybhalotia wrote: post #382
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?" Great insight that is worth repeating. One of my biggest problems with FIRE discussions is how much they reinforce the idea that retirement is a prerequisite for achieving happiness. This leads a lot of FIRE-minded people to double down…

> For the average FIRE person working a $100-200K/year job This is not at all "average" in countries outside of the US. Here in India, for example, a $100K job is kinda like winning the lottery. For reference, going by the exchange rate it equals somewhat close to 7.5M in local currency. Handymen and people in other labour-heavy jobs don't earn this much in their entire life, considering a 30 years of active work lif…

Moreover, we don't even have a concept of "hourly" wages or work measurement.

- Salaries are decided monthly and unless you are an hourly billed consultant, you cannot negotiate your working hours to be lesser. - Part-time jobs do exist, but only low paying labour intensive jobs which won't leave enough energy for you to be working 2 jobs. - Shifts are again meant only for such jobs as described above. - Employment agreements explicitly prohibit you from "working" to earn in any other way. Getting a passive income is okay, but you cannot work / render services elsewhere to earn.

From junior to senior level employees, almost everyone in all sorts of jobs is overworked. Average workday last close to 10 hours, excl commute et al. Pandemic and WFH have worsened this if anything.

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

#384

Post by etripe »

AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #297
yarcob wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

40h/week of work leaves very little time for household, kids, exercise, side projects, and relaxing. I think 20h/week is a more reasonable target if you want to enjoy things beside work. Of course it's okay to work 40h/week if you really want to, or even more, if you enjoy it, but you should really think hard about whether that's really what you want, or if it's just what your employer wants you to do.

> 20h/week That's what I have an issue with. When I'm working on a problem, I cannot simply forget about it at 3pm and head to the beach to enjoy life. The problem will be in my head 24/7 until one of us gives up.

That's not a problem. The difference is you put the thoughts on the back burner during off hours, which will often lead to greater insights than mulling over them constantly. Inspiration requires inactivity.

This is also something you can learn through techniques that fall under what HR might call mindfulness. After a while, you have a mental git stash that you can just pop. It's not entirely lossless, but the benefits to life are immense.

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

#385

Post by WA »

Frost1x wrote: post #52
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Got to admit that watching people struggle with the question of what to do without a job to fill their time is just completely wild to me. It is difficult for me to imagine someone who has so little they want to do outside of work that they can't easily find ways to fill up the 8+ hours a day their job takes from them. I have a list of things I'd like to do a mile long that I know I'll never actually find time to do…

The whole deeply-seated protestant belief that work ethic instills value in life always escapes me as well. There are so many things I'd love to do that don't even require a lot of financial resources or resources in general to accomplish beyond time, but unfortunately, due to needs like having a home and food, I have to work quite a bit and just can't find the time to do these things in those gaps. I understand the…

> There are so many things I'd love to do

Like what?

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

#386

Post by WA »

GavinMcG wrote: post #257
GavinMcG wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. The author blamed his former partner's unhappiness—in her own words, a feeling like they weren't "going anywhere," like there was no "forward progress," like there was no longer a "sense of momentum"—the author chalks all this up to a "pressure to keep up with the mythical Joneses" and to the idea that she is simply "wired to be like everyone else ." It takes him a year and a half to realize that maybe goals…

As a side note: I think the author probably is still getting it wrong on a certain level. He concludes that "[t]he most important cog in the machinery of my personal happiness turned out to be a simple one: Having a wonderful partner." This exemplifies an unhealthy relationship with boundaries and a disposition toward codependency. To be fair, he also acknowledges that "money doesn’t make you happy. People do. Connec…

Furthermore, he posted in a comment one year after the article of this thread:

> I still haven’t found anything in life that really pulls at me other than basic day to day stuff. Honestly I’m pretty content with consistent, enjoyable routines with occasional novelty (travel, a trip to an old arcade, etc) thrown into the mix. I thought by now that I’d feel passionate about — something? That I’d have a pull in one direction or another. But it’s absent — the drive to really want to do something new that requires a lot of effort is just not there.

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

#387

Post by unishark »

akshaybhalotia wrote: post #382
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?" Great insight that is worth repeating. One of my biggest problems with FIRE discussions is how much they reinforce the idea that retirement is a prerequisite for achieving happiness. This leads a lot of FIRE-minded people to double down…

> For the average FIRE person working a $100-200K/year job This is not at all "average" in countries outside of the US. Here in India, for example, a $100K job is kinda like winning the lottery. For reference, going by the exchange rate it equals somewhat close to 7.5M in local currency. Handymen and people in other labour-heavy jobs don't earn this much in their entire life, considering a 30 years of active work lif…

"Average" on HN obviously means average SV software engineer, if not average FAANG employee (slightly joking).

But seriously it can also get tiresome when people constantly have to call out others for failing to formulate every observation in globally inclusive terms that cover all humans rich and poor.

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

#388

Post by WA »

war1025 wrote: post #372
kerkeslager wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I personally think it is a sign of modern hubris to assume that effective family planning didn't exist prior to 1960s and the advent of birth control. Effective toward what end? Having kids when and only when you want them? Sure. "Only have sex when you want a kid" has always been an option. Having kids when and only when you want them, and fulfilling your biological urges? Not so much. I'm glad for you that your f…

> Having kids when and only when you want them? Sure. "Only have sex when you want a kid" has always been an option. > Having kids when and only when you want them, and fulfilling your biological urges? Not so much. Unsure if you're being obstinate or ignorant, but we've been married a decade and I assure you we have had sex several orders of magnitude more than the three times we conceived. Baby = Egg + sperm. Keep…

In your other comment, you wrote in a kinda magic-wishful-thinking way "you can only get pregnant if you really want kids". That is a contradiction to baby = egg + sperm.

If a woman has sex without some kind of fertility awareness, she gets pregnant. If she knows when she ovulates and avoids sex during that time and 5 days prior, she might not get pregnant.

Thing is: female libido is highest when the fertility in a cycle is the highest. So biologically speaking, women have to actively fight their hormones if they want to avoid pregnancy.

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

#389

Post by WA »

jseban wrote: post #314
eloisius wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, this post is an incredible example of gut-wrenching honesty about things working out differently than expected. I'm eight months into life without work right now, and can relate to a lot of this. I didn't make a plan to retire (early or otherwise), I just wanted to move abroad and take time to learn the language and think a little about what I want out of life aside from career. I can relate to the anxiety and e…

I don't understand how you can wake up with nothing to do and panic over it. I would always have some hobby or sports project going that I know I'd always want to work on, I seriously can't understand how someone can run out of things to do when there's painting, music, cooking, sports etc, just one of those would keep me busy and socially connected for a lifetime.

Because if you drop out of the work force, you get a different perspective. There's painting and music and they are a good contrast to your work, a good way to spend time not thinking about work.

But if there is only painting and music and cooking, it becomes kinda pointless, especially if most people you know don't have time during the day. You're doing this all alone.

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

#390

Post by WA »

CleverLikeAnOx wrote: post #269
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Got to admit that watching people struggle with the question of what to do without a job to fill their time is just completely wild to me. It is difficult for me to imagine someone who has so little they want to do outside of work that they can't easily find ways to fill up the 8+ hours a day their job takes from them. I have a list of things I'd like to do a mile long that I know I'll never actually find time to do…

I am in the same boat. I am 6 months into FIRE, and the list of things to do is growing, not shrinking. However, I would say that some things on the list turn out to be false. That is, I like the idea of doing them, but not enough to actually do it. So do account for some of your post FIRE ideas turning out to be just daydreams you aren't actually committed to.

Care to share a few examples?

I know this feeling of the idea of doing them. I'm conflicted about art (drawing, painting). In some way, I want to be a good painter, on the other hand, there is no painting in me that needs to come out.

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