I don't want to work very hard

I've been a professional developer about ten years now and I don't want to do it any more. I don't mean developing, I love coding. I mean work.

At every workplace (big to small, profit and non-, startup to hegemony), I'm enthusiastic the first couple weeks but inevitably slide to keeping up appearances with 2-6 hours of actual work per week. Sometimes I like coworkers and projects, sometimes I haven't. In any case, after a year or so I'm completely frustrated and I leave, to happily live off savings for a few months. Yeah, the million-dollar question from 'Office Space', find a way to make a career of whatever you'd do if you didn't have to have a career. It's possible, but it's the "career" part I hate. I fail to understand the Protestant Work Ethic. I don't see any reward in work, just lost time.

I've studied history some, things are great in America: abundant food, clean water, safe streets, no civil strife, no wars (yes, two occupations), effective medicine, efficient sanitation. It's not utopia, but there's no need to bust my ass to 'change the world'. The last 50 years are some of the best in history and the good times will likely keep rolling, so why waste them? Any if they're going to stop, why waste them?

Does anyone else feel like this?

I'm winding down on the best job I've ever had, two years at a small non-profit. It's taken longer, but I'm just as fed up with working. My plan is to take the money I've saved up and start a business. I think I've found a niche with a need, and if I can put enough in my pocket that I can buy insured and very low-risk securities to quietly live off a trickle of interest.

I've already done all the lifehack stuff, so I don't own or want to own much. I want my time, all of my time, to pursue my hobbies and relationships with friends and family. Consulting doesn't work, I'd have to charge hundreds per hour to work as little as I'd like, and that's before the client management/sales overhead. I've read 4 Hour Work Week and found the nuggets of good info in the fog of bad writing and hyperbole, but it basically comes down to becoming a manager. And if I was OK pushing pills I'd probably go hang out on the Digital Point forums to pick up some shady deals, but I have too much of a conscience.

I know it's not the PG startup plan, where you work like hell for a few years to make something people want. I just want to make a bankroll and get out. I'm not sure why I'm posting, except that hanging out here and reading about startups has made me think it's possible to break my frustrating cycle of work, and I'm curious to hear what folks think.

Yes. What you're looking for is a job in enterprise IT.

Yeah, my current expenses are a little under 20k/y. It's how I affored the idleness between jobs, and I've stretched it as long as I can.

And take care of the kids.

I'm afraid the good times won't keep rolling.

Over the next fifty years, humanity is going to face the largest ever crises amongst those that it has the ability to deal with: potential global catastrophe from climate change, and certain global catastrophe unless we develop and widely deploy effective non-fossil energy sources.

I say "it has the ability to deal with" because if people become aware of the seriousness of the situation, and are prepared to put themselves through half a century of much less comfort than we've been used to these last 25 years, then we can pull it off.