I'm far from retiring, but I always take a break between jobs. It used to be only 2 months, then last time it was 6 months. I'm very happy to be in tech because it allows us for that. I don't decide beforehand how much time I'm taking, instead I just reassess myself "am I still productive? Am I still enjoying doing nothing?" When the answer is no that's when I get back to work.
I love DIY so I've used that time to refurbish two apartments and catch up on gold rush. This time it's been 8 months and I'm just working on a side project.
By now I'm not enjoying that much anymore. It's been too long and I start to miss making part of the bunch. I'm also not fully using my time anymore, partially because in the end my wife is still working as well as my friends. I believe there's a limit to happiness when you do things on your own and don't share. At least I'm realizing that. I guess it's time to go back!
Also I wonder if I'll still be able to do this when I'm in my 40s or 50s. My parents always taught me it gets tougher to find a job as you get older. Obviously someone that's good will always find, but I wonder in general how aging will apply to tech.
Edit: As a follow up thought and this is what I've realized, the weekends are a pretty good picture of how we'd behave at retirement. If we are lazy on weekends, we'll be lazy afterwards. If we keep ourselves busy in the weekends with non work stuff, we'll probably be the same after retirement.
> the weekends are a pretty good picture of how we'd behave at retirement.
I think this depends on how one’s current job is affecting them.
If you’re near burnout or just work in a very stressful environment, the weekends are more about recovery from the week and might not be a good predictor of future choices when not stressed/burnt out.
Basing this comment mostly on personal experience since I’ve had both productive weekends and lazy/lost weekends and it generally depends on how the current job is going.
> Basing this comment mostly on personal experience since I’ve had both productive weekends and lazy/lost weekends and it generally depends on how the current job is going.
This resonates a lot. My partner is a startup founder, and fairly often their weekend is life maintenance and recovery because their work week allows nothing else. I spend much more time on side projects, but on some weeks I can tell on Friday that it’s not going to be a productive weekend by any standard except self care.
I do think that's fair. I think the important distinction to make is that there are likely two "modes" when shifting into retirement or a long sabbatical:
- Recovery
- Steady state
I think understanding that both exist is important so as not to fall into negative patterns of thinking like "I'm just wasting my time away" vs. "I'm giving my system a very needed break".
As a counterpoint to your edit, personally work exhausts me to a level where weekends are mostly spent recuperating/doing chores and not being productive. It’s a week or two into the breaks I’ve taken from work where I start being productive in ways I rarely manage during my working periods.
Yes that part didn't ring true for myself. I have found that burnout absolutely kills my weekends. I don't have energy for anything besides doom scrolling. And it takes at least several days off to feel my intrinsic motivation come back. After a week I'm ready to learn Japanese, not go back to work.
The part for me was having to go to sleep early every night so the next day wouldn't be an early morning drag... I hated it even way back in my school days. Quitting a job is liberating, but it's also terrifying if you can't financially sustain a full or comfortable retirement into the future.
Getting a paycheck means surrendering your ability to wake up and live your life based completely on your own internal clock, and it can be a big drain on your mental health and physical well being. There are ways of charging your battery, but it's not always possible without risk and/or sacrifice if you weren't born rich or somehow otherwise financially lucky.
Health is wealth too though... We're usually born with a "glass full of water" that represents our health - mental and physical health. Over time we drink from that glass until it's gone... Once you burn out, you're toast. It's important to always be cognizant of where your water supply is, and to try to stop letting people drink from your glass before it completely runs dry... If you're lucky, you'll turn your water into a nice vintage wine.
The 2 weak break spurts you talk about are mostly temporary and happens because you do them so rarely. Long term it will likely look more like those weekends.
Best case you keep your work habits and can continue working on your hobbies like you did work previously, but worst case it will all look like those weekends.
Two weeks is how long it takes me to be somewhat recovered from work burnout, I’ve taken a much longer break and kept up productivity for the duration. You’re not wrong about the need to be mindful of habits thoughts. They’re not quite work habits, but no longer needing to spend energy maintaining work habits creates the room for me to maintain other habits instead. I do still have to be mindful of what it is I want to be achieving over a period of time and work to maintain habits that will push me towards those goals, but it’s a lot more pleasurable to get to choose on your own what those goals and habits will be.
Edit: A side note being, between the changes to work culture and me gaining the experience to be more desirable to work places, I’ve managed to move to a more flexible remote position that gives me a fair bit of control over my day to day. This has definitely increased my ability to be productive in my off time, due to the lowered stress on my general energy levels.
the weekends are a pretty good picture of how we'd behave at retirement.
Interesting, thanks for the insight. I've also heard that, your teenage hobbies are another source of where you might find your passion in retirement. What did you do for fun as a teenager, and how does that compare to what you do during your breaks?
Interesting to see this as I’ve never heard returning to adolescent interests being common but that’s exactly the path I followed after leaving tech. I tried getting into sound engineering because I loved recording with rented 4 track recorders and early software DAWs in my late teen years. It didn’t stick and I ended up going back further to when I found an old Honda Trail 70 in a barn when I was a kid and rode around absolutely everywhere in my local area just to explore.
I recently found the adventure riding community and built up a Husky 701 for multi-day (hopefully multi-week in the future) on/off road trips. It’s not unlike a small open source project but more physically active. I’m early 40s now and plan to explore on a bike into my 60s.
I also recently bought a ranch in Colorado. This isn’t from my childhood but turned out to hit all the right notes for me. Ranchin’ is almost impossible to make a profit at but I’ve met a bunch of people now who can’t stop doing it and I understand why. It’s a never ending stream of natural projects, big and small, that engage every part of you mentally and physically. Again here, not unlike a (larger) software project.
I went into tech because I thought I liked hacking, turns out I just like work, especially on systems you can iterate on every day and see improvement.
As for tech, I haven’t written a line of code in years and rarely use the internet except for practical things like maps and basic information. I still browse HN occasionally. Not sure why as there’s not a lot of content relevant to my current interests. It still has a little of whatever I loved about tech in the 2000-2015 era, which seems entirely gone from the wider internet now.
Actually that might make sense. I started "wood working" when I was 10yo and later helping with construction stuff. This was not child labor, but I would spend a lot of time at my grandparents. Thanks to crappy tv channels and no internet, kids would be super creative to find stuff to do.
My DIY face then went into sleep mode for many years and came back when I started taking breaks from work.
I think you have that the wrong way around. That should be:
> "Thanks" to modern distractions like binge watching and doom scrolling people lose their creativity and drive to do anything but further please their addictions.
> Also I wonder if I'll still be able to do this when I'm in my 40s or 50s. My parents always taught me it gets tougher to find a job as you get older. Obviously someone that's good will always find, but I wonder in general how aging will apply to tech.
I work for 2-3 years and take anywhere from 6-18 months off in between jobs. I'm pushing 50 and it hasn't been a problem.
I hear the ageism claim all the time, but I've seen no evidence of it whatsoever. I have no problem finding a job when I put myself on the market, usually within a few weeks at most. Many of the people I work with are in their 40s and 50s. I've never heard or seen any age discrimination.
I occasionally run into people in their 50s who haven't learned anything new in decades, but they're always working. Sometimes they express fear that they won't be able to find a new job. In all these cases, it's warranted, but also deserved. Regardless of your age, if you're not keeping up with the technology trends, you don't belong in the game. You don't need to chase the latest flavor, but if you're a software engineer, you'd better keep up with at least some modern tech stacks. That applies regardless of age.
Yea, I'm closing in on 50 and I would be terrified of just "taking a break" without another job lined up. Despite what you hear here about tech workers being in high demand, and companies just handing out job offers, I wonder how much of that takes into account the Valley's well-known ageism. My last job search (about 3 years ago) took about a year and resulted in one offer which I gratefully took.
And HR depts are just fine with that? (taking 2-6 months off) I get the impression They prefer those who stay on the wheel, as they don't have to worry you will just decide you need to take a break from working again.
I’m not American and maybe your HR culture is different, but I have worked in enterprise sized organisations for a few decades, currently one with 10,000 employees and a relatively large HR department, and I’m curious as to why HR would get involved.
If I had a valuable employee that could leave us for 2-6 months a year (without pay), without us having support issues from the absence, I wouldn’t much mind it, and if I don’t mind then HR would never get involved. My employees work for me, not for our HR department. The only time HR processes are forced upon me is in hiring situations, the yearly employee development plan review meeting or if someone logs a serious complaint, like bullying or sexual harassment, and, that’s not because of HR, it’s because the four CEOs have decided those are the organisation wise processes to follow.
If you mean hiring processes, nobody really cares about absence periods in my experience. Sure you’ll be asked, but it’s not like it’s really relevant in most cases. It’s like hiring a young woman around 30 with no children (I work in the public sector where there are fairly good maternity leave plans), you know there is a pretty big chance they’ll have one or two kids while working for you, but if they are good, then you’ll still want them.
Yeah and actually some companies allow you to have unpaid time off (like 1 year) after you've been with them for x amount years. Companies know people need a break.
It helps if you take the six months off in the same calendar year, so end job A in January, start looking against in July-August. On a resume/CV, that's invisible! But even ending a job in mid-2018 and then looking in February 2019 didn't seem to raise any eyebrows for me. I just said I got a nice layoff package and spent some time traveling and basically got "must be nice!" in return.
> And HR depts are just fine with that? (taking 2-6 months off)
Another myth I see spread all the time. HR departments don't care about this. If they ask, it's only because someone told them it's a thing to be concerned about, and they're parroting what they heard. Make something up if you really feel like you need to address it and are afraid to tell them to fuck off. It's a stupid question that doesn't come from any legitimate business concern. In my 30+ year career, I was asked about a brief gap between jobs only one time, and that was decades ago. If a place actually cares about this, it's a good sign that you should find a job somewhere better. If you're really concerned, just leave the dates off your resume entirely, or at least leave the months off. Who cares about this stuff?
I think you don't mean how much time I take between jobs, but the fact that I quit every so often?
I always ask the same question. How much is too much?
However, that's one of the benefits of working in tech. It became acceptable to change jobs every so often. And it became acceptable to quit to focus on yourself... If you sell it that way.
There's also this time I had a chat with my manager and peers about whether or not to hire this guy.
We wanted to hire him, but we had a feeling he wouldn't stay long with us. He was very entrepreneurial. The conclusion straight away was "it's fine, if he stays with us just 1 year, we already benefit from it". I'm not saying I'm this guy, but it sounds acceptable nowadays.
It went really well for him for about 30 years, and then he started to decline into depression. I don't think it was directly related to being retired.
He built a barbecue out of cinder blocks, then rebuilt it out of bricks. He learned to knot in order to make hammocks. He took up painting with acrylics -- I wouldn't say he ever became good at it, but he liked it and that's the point. The same for charcoal -- but he didn't like the mess, so he dropped it quickly.
He took up teaching advanced math to the local elementary school kids. He taught himself programming in BASIC and wrote math games and text adventures about our neighborhood.
He watched a lot of movies, read a lot of books, and kept the house on a schedule. He went from being an adequate cook to a reasonably good one.
He built relationships with the neighbors and went for a walk twice a day when the weather was adequate.
They were really aimed at us (his kids) and featured events like Johnny-Jump-Up (one of our cats) being discovered in the raspberry patch. I don't think any of them are still around, but Dad probably has an archive of floppy disks, so it's possible.
At this point he is quite depressed and anxious over everything. No offense, but I don't think it would be a good idea to introduce him to an Internet stranger.
I can relay his three best pieces of advice, though, all of which he related to me around the time I went to college.
1. Don't take a course where the professor wrote the book. If they knew any way to explain the material, they put it in the book, and won't be able to help you more than that.
2. People get excited about all sorts of things, and if you're reasonably friendly and available they will invite you to everything. That's not bad in itself, but you need to be selective about what you go to, or else you'll find that you never did the things that you needed to do, just the ones that you wanted to do.
3. There are lots of reversible mistakes, and others that are disastrous to try to recover from. Try to recognize your mistakes and back out of them before you hit the disaster point. Marriage is easily but painfully reversible until you have kids; then it's a disaster.
I appreciate that. Thank you. I hope he starts feeling better. If it ever becomes a better idea (or even a hail mary play), you send him my way, please: https://philosopher.life/#Contact%20h0p3. He can take a look around to decide if he'd be interested.
Minus the depression, you have basically described my dream life. Retire early, pursue projects and relationships I find rewarding, take care of my family. I turn 30 in 10 days... not sure I'll be retiring any time soon. But still, a man can dream.
What is early? What is stopping working? I semi-retired at 44, but I am still working as a contract programmer and bill for about 20-25 hours a week.
I worked a ho-hum programming job for nearly 20 years (yes, just the one), feeling miserable for at least the last 3. There was no "cashing out", though when the company sold to private investors I got something like an extra 75% of a year of pay. It wasn't that money, but saving (index fund investing) all along that would have let me say "to heck with it, I can retire today" (albeit with a slightly reduced standard of living).
Instead, I waited until something part time & much more fulfilling came my way. Now I get to work on open source all day, or as little as I want, and I get paid for a substantial chunk of it. To my surprise, working 50-60% as long each week not only means I don't have to do dip into investments, but I can still add to my investments.
Now, the timing of this change was not great, because 5 months later COVID hit, so the travel aspects of my new life haven't materialized in the way I thought they would. When I start travelling as freely as I thought I would when I left traditional work in late 2019, that's when I hope to truly feel semi-retired.
When will I fully retire? Not while I can get paid to work on open source software, largely on my own terms. When will I stop working on open source? Hopefully not anytime soon.
Any tips on finding "something part time & much more fulfilling"? Did you just wait for something to find you, did you actively search out opportunities..?
I've been using & contributing to open source for a long time. I had the good fortune to end up on the radar of the project lead for Adafruit's CircuitPython, and when he found out I was looking for something different, it was also the right time for them to bring someone new on board. Their embedded & creative teams were already all set up for someone who wanted to make a part time remote commitment.
So it feels like there was a big element of luck, but also I feel that having a history of open source work visible on github, as well as creating personal connections in the open source world, helped it happen for me.
There aren't a whole lot of Adafruits out there, where you're shipping new hardware products weekly, most of them with open source drivers.
Most of my work is contract work with Adafruit. Almost every week we put out new hardware and most of those get open source drivers and/or creative projects that appear on Github and the Adafruit Learning System. The sales of the hardware fund the development of the software (& the new hardware).
I quit tech, moved to a rural area, and bought some farmland at the beginning of the year. got a couple different jobs to learn how to do things. first building polebarns and then framing houses. got to journeyman in framing last month and quit. finishing up my first barn and now i am getting ready to build a greenhouse over the winter. been preparing the soil. will be ready for planting next year.
technically i didnt really quit working. but rather i am free to pursue what i want to do. for example im going to build my own house. and grow and sell organic food. i want to develop technology to improve farming. i enjoy designing and building things in all sorts of mediums. i like working, but i have an entrepreneurial spirit. and in order to feel fulfilled i have to pursue my own ventures.
I literally did this too. Moved to Austin, TX and bought a farm after I quit my last full-time job. Went back to school to get an associates in construction management instead of actually learning the job (sounds like I should've gone your route). Anyway, graduating this semester then working full time to build up the raw land and get animals to keep my ag-exemption. Long-term I'd want to hire a farm-hand to keep everything going day-to-day so I can travel.
I've sort of conned myself into thinking I could start some solo projects on my own in the past 6 months, but it just hasn't happened due to classes and a myriad of distractions. Recently I've been beating myself up a bit for it, but I know that isn't productive. Once I solve a few ongoing projects in my life and I get things moving a bit faster for the farm I'll start keeping to a strict schedule of farming from 6-9am, then going to my coworkspace and code until maybe 3pm, then work out, then either socialize/read or go to a local hackerspace and work on side-projects.
Medium/long term it's important to me to not just live off of my savings and to generate enough value (not off investments) to maintain my quality of life.
Serendipitous to read this comment. I was just this morning trying to find a farm share to buy into. If (when!) you make your organic farming dream come true, register and sell on a place like this site: https://www.harvie.farm
Makes it easy for people like me to buy your stuff. Anyways, good luck!
Home suburban gardening is quite different from providing ~2000 calories per person per day for a family. Depending on the source, I found a figure of 5-10 acres per person needed for a year's food (for a 100% vegetarian diet, no livestock). So for a family of 4, you'd be looking at 20 acres or so, minimum, which is approximately 1000x1000 feet.
why don't people just maintain a healthy balance between real and virtual in their lives? as somebody from the countryside I don't know why people elect to do such things
funny reading stories like this as someone who grew up on a farm and knows how much hard work it is, I would drive tractors, feed cows, pull in hay, silage etc on evenings and weekends and even before school when required, from around age 11... I studied maths/sci and went into computing, and am now again coming full circle with vertical farming and controlled environments!
Traditional farming is so much better for the planet than intensive farming, however, I believe it takes a certain type of person and mentality to get through it. It really is a lifestyle choice!
I have also wondered how much easier farming could be if the farm didn't actually need to generate money to survive...
i found a job listing on craigslist and called the guy, he hired me on the spot.
for the framing job i walked up to a framing crew and asked if they needed a guy. they did and so i got hired. i just convinced the boss. the place where i moved to has lots of small crews and lots of home building going on right now.
previous relevant experience includes woodworking and machining. i also watched a fair amount of youtube before and during. ability to do fractional math and read a tape. ability to read and produce mechanical drawings helped.
really it was just being interested in the field and convincing someone i was serious enough about it. and i followed through everyday.
It is the life. i highly encourage you to do so. so many new experiences and opportunities to learn. im growing so much personally. developing parts of myself i had never dreamed of developing. rounding out myself and my character. it really tests what you are made of and is very rewarding so far.
My brother was a doctor and was able to take an extended hiatus for a long time. He gave me these words of wisdom that I have found true as well. “You need a job or you get weird.”
Humans are built for problem solving and the struggle and the adventure of challenge. I think we need it like we need food, water, sleep, etc.
I quit my job as a scientist and rolled over all my retirement into Bitcoin a few years ago. That has gone well. I started a business of growing medical marijuana and I love that. That has gone well too. Incredible amounts of work and 12 hour days and struggles, especially at first, but I love the challenge of trying to grow the best in the world and in my area. I will probably be able to quit if I wanted to soon. But I can’t imagine what I would do. I want to travel but I know that won’t last. I’ll probably just scale back my weed operation some but still concentrate on chasing the dragon of growing the best weed. I love it that much. I should also add that I don't even use marijuana. I just love plants and always have.
Does it not worry you that you can wake up one day and find that your retirement fund has disappeared, or that it's value has plummeted to the point where it is no longer financially feasible to draw from for day-to-day living?
At least with money in traditional index fund investments, entire economies have to collapse before my money goes away, and if there's one thing I learned about the stock market, is that it can be irrational (yet irrationally consistent!) far longer than I expect it can be.
No it doesn’t worry me. I don’t even need my retirement money right now, I have the money from the medical marijuana business for day to day expenses. Bitcoin follows a four year cycle caused by the halving dates and my money was put in near this cycle’s low. It would have to fall an incredible amount for me to even be close to what I put in. The real gutsy move was putting it in back then. But every sign I knew pointed to it being a good idea.
The end of the cycle is this December and I will sell and diversify my portfolio in case crypto fails completely. I will buy back in crypto after a year with a significant portion of my portfolio though. I don’t see crypto going away ever. I see the next decade being the decade of hard money like crypto and gold after the unprecedented money printing decade we just experienced.
I think you should be more worried about your stock portfolio crashing. I won’t be in equities again until I see a significant reversion to the mean. They were overextended a few years ago, now we need a new word for what they are haha.
Legit question: what's going to happen when bitcoin is no longer produced? Like, there's a finite amount of bitcoin that will ever be mined, and after that, why would anyone keep running their mining operations? How do transactions get verified after that?
Doesn't the entire viability of bitcoin as a currency depend on miners mining?
> Humans are built for problem solving and the struggle and the adventure of challenge.
I think that's only true for some people. More generally we need to feel useful. For many people (women especially) that means caring for people, making sure they are well fed, warm etc. not problem solving or adventure.
It’s fantastic. I have never struggled to fill my time, so a world without a formal job just allows me to spend time on what I care about. At the moment about a third of my time is spent working on mechanical projects and cars. Whatever I imagine I can actually work on and build, and whatever skills I lack I have time to learn!
Another third of my time is spent pursuing paragliding. It’s something I found interesting before, but I just never had the flexibility in my life to take more than a week off work. Now I can live in Colombia for a month at a time, both a great environment and change of pace, and a fantastic way to learn.
The rest of my time I work on a little mini startup. It’s different than what I was doing before because it’s decidedly ‘lifestyle’. No VC money. Just building something I find interesting with people I like. If I don’t want to do something, or I don’t have the time, I simply say that! It’s all the fun of building a product and bringing it to the market with a world less stress.
The most important thing to know is: I didn’t plan any of this. I was so burnt out that thinking of anything I wanted to do was challenging. But after six months of cranking on cars and other mundane projects the world opened in front of me, and I realized all those things I loved doing as a child are still with me.
I'm 30 years old and have been effectively retired for 1 year. Before this I was an software engineer / manager for startups and bluechips. I left due to stress issues at work, depression and needing to become a carer for a short while but now don't have a good reason or monetary need to return to work again so I guess I am retired?
I had been so defined by work for my entire life that I didn't really know who I was outside of the crunch and the office. I don't miss the office or work but do miss the people. I am not from a wealthy background, the majority of my family and friends find it very strange and it can be a bit awquard in conversation. When I feel ashamed I browse job postings / linkedin, but am coming to realise that it was sad how much self worth I gained from having other people think I was successful or smart.
I've learnt that staying busy is paramont to my health, I've started a small bussiness to keep me busy doing one of my passions, grow a lot of my own food and walk a lot. Sometimes I miss the massive engineering challenges working with a team, I could see myself taking a job for that alone. My life doesn't have a lot of meaning right now, sometimes I dream that some great purpose or mission will be thrust on me. To be honest I feel a bit adrift!
I'm in a similar situation but Ive got kids and a wife. They add a tonne of purpose and meaning. My side business is a small farm. Great side effect of that is all the jobs on the farm are kid friendly. Spending all my days with my little family making world class food can not be beat. You may want to consider adding some little ones to your life. :)
I knew an awesome software architect who retired early. He was back at work a few years later. I asked why. "Turns out I'm kinda shit at my hobbies, but I'm quite good at this." I think I'm the same way. I like the sharpness that comes of working on interesting stuff, and I've devoted the prime of my life to becoming good at tech. I like the work, but often hate some of the boss bullshit. I like the person I am when I'm focused and working on interesting work. I started doing contract work just swapping a boss for a customer changed almost everything. I'm also free to fire the rare customer who won't listen or can't get out of their own way (and I try to provide radical candor about what they can do to fix it during my exit interview). An agency has emerged around me and now we have 15 people doing the same. Email is in my profile if anyone is interested. We ask people to work at least 20 hours a week (otherwise it's not worth the trouble of onboarding). We favor competent, senior, independent people who like to build things. I don't think I'll ever retire, but I'll shift more and more into "work I love, conducted on my own terms". That being said I'm also considering a move to a rural area and want to construct a pole barn workshop. Crazy how much overlap there is here for this particular interest. Maybe it's something in the zeitgeist.
I'm not retired, but I am shift worker in Healthcare, which means I have 3-4 days off per week. A question I often get from people when they hear that is "Wow! What do you do with all your time off?" The answer is always, "I live my life."
On my days off I catch up on chores. I take care of my body by going to the gym, yoga studio, boxing gym, or ride my bike. I spend time with friends if they are available, which is tricky because I'm only off every other weekend. I bake sourdough bread and seek perfection in extracting the perfect cup of espresso. I read HN.
I often think what I would be doing if I met your criteria for answering this questions and didn't have to work the other 3-4 days of my week, and I think the answer would be to look for meaningful work. There is a fulfillment or sense of purpose in work that doesn't come to me in the prolonged absence of it, I don't define myself by it, but as Marcus Aurelius said in his Meditations:
“At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: “I have to go to work — as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for — the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?”
So you were born to feel “nice”? Instead of doing things and experiencing them? Don’t you see the plants, the birds, the ants and spiders and bees going about their individual tasks, putting the world in order, as best they can? And you’re not willing to do your job as a human being? Why aren’t you running to do what your nature demands?
You don’t love yourself enough. Or you’d love your nature too, and what it demands of you.”
> Don’t you see the plants, the birds, the ants and spiders and bees going about their individual tasks, putting the world in order
Sorry to nitpick, but spiders build the web and then cowardly hide and wait till a victim gets caught and is completely helpless. Not really a model of moral virtue.
Right... And software developers write the code and cowardly hide while sales people actually sell it. Do you just dislike spiders? Any insect could be a pest if you look at it in a certain light.
I am happy with my choice. And hey, I've got more time to visit HN! But seriously, I would have been happy to exit the workforce at any point. Working in the tech field has never been healthy for me. It was a hobby that paid sufficiently. Now I have more time to focus on undoing the damage from sitting so much and not remaining physically active.
I hear you on undoing the damage. Going on two years into a long break and I’m still improving my insomnia. Recovering from stress related health problems takes time, in my experience. I love tech and want to live a long time to see what amazing things we create. Sad that the industry takes such a toll on its workers.
Strangely, I get up earlier as there's no dread of the corporate environment.
I have standing time with friends and family: Depending on the season, Weekly golf, lunch, tennis. Daily walks with my spouse.
Volunteer efforts provide some opportunities to give, feel internal and external appreciation and a sense of adding value to others.
Plenty of time for reading, learning, experimenting and puzzle solving. There are so many resources to learn about new topics and try things.
When I hear people express fear of being bored after their career, I have to pick my jaw off the floor. I can't imagine there has been a time with more information freely available.
Yes, I get up insanely early now. During my "productive" years of schooling and work, I mashed the snooze button five times and rarely made it to my desk by 9. Despite all my bellyaching about how important one's job is to one's identity, there's something very unnatural and wrong about needing an alarm clock to engage with the world.
If you have more money than god then why not start a non-profit of some sort? Between being a millionaire and still being an organization leader, there's plenty of status there. And you get to call yourself a philanthropist which is pretty flashy.
It's work, sure, but all you really have to do is hire the right person to lead the effort (and build a team under them) while you call the bigger shots. It only requires as much energy as you want to put in.
Yes indeed. That’s why I always question people who only focus on financial success. I have met way too many people who were financially independent and seriously unhappy/depressed.
I quit about a year ago. At first, I had to get used to the new cadence. I was so accustomed to being amped up all of the time, from work, I had to take time to decompress. My schedule ended up growing erratic, so I had to get on a routine schedule. Now, I think I'm 80% recovered. I've been drawing and painting. I joined a maker space, and I've been building stuff. I started work on a game mod. Catching up on Youtube videos, becoming active in the local community. Stuff like that.
I started a "lifestyle" company 32-ish years ago (4 guys all working from home all these years), and have pretty much had complete control of my time and schedule. (Other than periods of intense work bursts that couldn't be avoided, either to get going initially or to finish some critical project.)
It's enabled me to help homeschool our 8 kids over the years (now all flown; youngest just started college) and travel quite a bit with the kids to various music and dance camps around the world, etc. Plus timber framing with sons, wood-fired pizza making, etc, etc.
Don't know if I'll ever formally retire, but could see doing a lot more travel visiting kids and grandkids around the country, and doing more woodworking/timber framing.
I quit before I could finish 6 years as an employee. I enjoyed working on complex projects and I'm proud of several contributions that I often reminiscence even after 7 years of leaving. There were several reasons why I left, for example - losing interest in the field (VLSI), burn out and dislike of corporate work environment.
I didn't have anything planned, which was a huge mistake on my part. Long story [0] short, I was surviving on my earnings from the job for more than 4 years before writing ebooks got me back on track.
I'd say it has been tough going. But even now I can't imagine going back to work.
Crossed 50, not retired, nor planning to any soon. The good thing about this industry (tech, if that is not obvious) is that it [still] pays well, and there are no set rules about what happens when you are x years old. Don't let the occasional story about bias make you think it applies to you. Every time I take a break between jobs, I am hopeful that there is someone out there who is willing to pay for my skills and I will be able to get back to work if I want to, provided I keep myself up to date.
My buddy cashed out big 15 years ago. Immediately had to pick up something in another field - he chose construction. Bought lots, hired contractors to build on the condition he could be in the crew. Studied and apprenticed and became a competent carpenter.
Yup. What I think id do is go and get my PhD in chemistry. I always found it interesting but left the lab to pursue a better career. You get paid a small amount and it’s intellectually stimulating so seems perfect.
i did something like this. cashed out bought farmland at the beginning of the year. got a job on a framing crew so i could learn to build my own house. made journeyman last month. its fun and exciting. and helped me repair the damage from sitting for 15 years.
I am now programming for just over 4 years post early retirement. Much better than working for somebody else. But then I have set goals in life that are extremely unlikely to change and are as unlikely to be all reached. Though 50 or so remaining years might make even moonshots to be accessible.
40+ years programming here. I hear you and understand 100% what you mean. My biggest fear is that I will ever loose interest/excitement in learning new things.
I started working in 1987, got burnt out in a couple of startups (but did well financially), went half-time in 2003 until last year (with a break for a PhD in between), and am now officially retired.
It is wonderful having the leverage to do whatever I feel like doing, or not committing to a long-term project. The more I act pricey, the more I seem to attract 'em!
I used to miss the camaraderie of office mates, but live interaction is gone anyway in these covid times. All days are weekends; my social calendar is dictated by others' schedules! We moved close to our aging parents and in-laws to be with them in their dotage, which has its pluses and some minuses, but no regrets at all on that count, for we must afford them some of the affection and happiness that they showered on us when we were yay high.
I code for fun, have done a bunch of ML courses and am now learning statistics in earnest. I am learning (Indian) music from two separate teachers, and cook a fair bit. 'Sall good!
I just started an 8 week sabbatical after 16ish years in startups. Also self-taught I’ve had a copy of SICP on my shelf that I’ve been meaning to get to.
With a parent who has a PhD in RF engineering I’ve always wondered how it would have turned out if I’d gone the academic route instead of dropping out of high school to chase being a founder.
I tried to do that last year, but I ended up working on a side-project for fun in my spare time which is now blowing up into a real startup. Once I had a work inbox again, I realized I had forgotten how much I love to work, how much I love to have emails to respond to, decisions to make, growth numbers to pursue. I think I'll never go back to a completely idle pace of life again, as coding and growing a business are just too much fun.
Not completely retired, but work remotely and only a few hours a week at this point. Stepping back from the rat race at 30 was the greatest thing to ever happen to my life. I'd spent my entire 20s singularly focused on my career and building my skills. When I hit 30 and looked up around me, I realized I'd achieved everything I set out to do but was still miserable and alone in life. Everyone I knew was getting married, having kids, building relationships, and I had completely neglected that aspect of myself for the last 10 years.
Stepping away allowed me to completely reprioritize what mattered to me and what I wanted out of life. I rekindled old friendships and love interests and eventually met my wife. I realized I'd never actually been truly happy before on a consistent basis, and learned what life is actually all about. That money and career success are simply means to an end of living well and loving others.
I feel for people that are always trapped in survival mode because you get stuck in these ruts that become completely impossible to see out of. You end up so shortsighted and focusing on something that doesn't really matter in the end. But life is just a game that's meant to be played for the enjoyment of it. There's no prize at the end, and your score doesn't matter.
Followed similar tangents, but it's easy to forget the scope of fear from those earlier years. Afraid of failure, of not having the capacity to provide for anyone else let alone myself, of working a shit job I can't get out of (like my father). It wasn't even about keeping up with the Joneses; as you say, the career is a means to an end, but you still want the means. Priorities change also, we tend to be more ambitious when we're young.
Well it started slow, and I spent my twenties working very hard, but by 30 I had a few million dollars and decided to take a few years off. I had never really traveled, so I spent most of the next few years living out of a suitcase and at one point hadn't been back to my home country for a couple of years.
I went from only having visited a few countries briefly to having seen quite a lot of around 70 countries. I did lots of mountaineering, skiing, diving, and tried my hand at quite a few other sports. I went to a bunch of tech conferences all over Europe and Asia, just for fun. I flew so much that I was in the air for over 2% of my total hours a couple of years.
After a few years of that I slowed down the travel some, and by luck I had just signed a year lease for a beautiful home overlooking the sea in a country I kept coming back to just a couple of months before the pandemic shut down air travel.
Since then I have been taking up the hands-on hobbies that I thought looked fun and just never had enough time/space/funds for when I was working. I had a daughter with my partner, and am incredibly glad for the joyous little being I'm starting to raise. I have even recently gotten back into doing some software engineering for fun.
About a decade ago I had an idea for something that felt too big to be what got me setup to pursue what I wanted early on. The project was too complex, too long-term, and there was too little existing ecosystem to tap into. In the intervening years the ecosystem has started to come together and I've managed to strike well enough to have my freedom elsewhere, so I'm looking at getting back to being a founder within a couple of years.
Retired 6 months ago at 50 years old. So far I love it. I do not miss work at all. I have not done any programming since I quit and I have no immediate plans to. I had a lot of other plans for my retirement but from reading advice from other early retirees I have decided to just unwind and "do nothing" until that gets boring.
The days do feel longer but not in a bad way. There is plenty to do even when doing nothing. I exercise regularly, eat healthier and my overall health is a lot better now. I have started traveling a bit which I expect will increase once Covid situation improves across the world.
There is a ton of books I would love to read but so far I have not found time for it.
I stopped working for money a few months ago in my late 20s. I still do occasional light consulting (0 - 2h/week) for old clients though, but I can live off my savings indefinitely.
Before quitting (and before COVID), I was working remotely and living out of my backpack in places all around the world. I lived in Central America for a few months and learned Spanish to a conversational level. I experienced what it's like to live in a conflict zone in the Middle East. I couchsurfed in strangers houses in lots of countries and places off the beaten path and got a glimpse into many very different lives. I took time off to do multi-week hiking trips in high mountains and wilderness areas, often solo. I did some workaways housesitting, petsitting, helping out with construction and/or gardening.
Now that I no longer have to work, I'm doing more of that plus spending more time learning things (languages, dancing, etc.), getting more fit, volunteering with youth, and so on. I'm hoping find a more impactful way to help people suffering from things I've suffered with in the past, we'll see what I end up doing on that front beyond volunteering.
27, stopped "working" a couple of years ago. (Some form of lean FI/RE right now: my current hobbies support my lifestyle, and I have sufficient savings). Life is simple, and I'm content, at least for the time-being. I know I could contract whenever I need to: something very flexible has fallen into place which I expect will start in the next couple of weeks.
Today so far: Mostly fundraising for an Olympiad (get in touch!), half an hour of open source work. Cutting weight for the next ~7 weeks, so aiming for 2 hours exercise/day. Weather isn't great, so did a few sets in my home gym, and spent the remainder of my time on Beat Saber (VR).
As for plans for later:
I haven't done enough Open Source today, I should do some testing and get a PR in. Might shelve it for tomorrow.
I'm working on a bilingual textual corpus for my local language with a few friends (colleagues?) (it's an uncommon revived language, and it's a reasonable goal to digitize every known work/manuscript which is out of copyright).
I'm prepping a .djvu of a book to upload to Wikisource for safekeeping. I've got a small backlog of texts that need a bit of proofreading which I'd like to clear. Long-term plans might involve getting the book republished (for fun, rather than for profit).
Afterwards? It's Friday night, probably off to the pub with friends for a pint.
I've chosen flexibility instead of money. I can meet friends whenever they're free. I'm living a purposeful life, and I'm truly content. Financially: it's a lifestyle hit, but that's an acceptable tradeoff for all the above, and I expect the income will continue to increase.
That's my dream... I have so many hobbies that I can't enjoy because of the lack of time. But it seems that before I save enough, I'll be too old and tired to finally enjoy them. At least I'm not going hungry in the meantime.
I believe everyone has a different set of circumstances, and never the same path, but it's great to be able to see people writing under this topic about the paths they took, just to be able to know I'm sane.
I'm unmarried... spent most of my younger life driven to make money and buy a house. It's been the best decision for me to buy a house when I'm working because of the tax deductions. That being said I've always wanted to be a musician, and an independent thinker. Working for others served to pay bills, but also served to burn valuable years off of my life... Because I'm not married and have no kids, I'm able though to be a bit less cautious, and have taken time off of work in small cycles (3-6 months at a time).
I have always planned a point of retirement, but I'm not there because it's impossible to know how good my savings need to be, and how the economy will go into the future, and I don't want to have to go back to working, after years off, when I'm much older in a future where jobs may not be available to someone like me.
I have no shortage of things to do in retirement, but most of it depends on being well funded, and in today's world, financial, time without income, and investment risks are much scarier than it used to be. But the truth has always been the same - No risk, no reward.
Best I can tell it's extremely situational. Depends on the person and also family/kids/environment.
A friend cashed out mid 40s but is the kind of person who doesn't stop. Did real estate, baking, landscape, had a kid, seems up for anything and quite content.
A another is wealthy enough to stop working at anytime but doesn't want to retire.
I slowly slid into retirement in mid 30s. Started out great. I sometimes work part-time and program for fun a bit. But when kid #2 and #3 came it was very difficult for me. Being retired was the saving grace that made it work at all. Now things are slowly getting better.
For me a normal day is 4-5 hours for kids, 1-2 hours walking/biking, 2-3 hours reading/programming/working. Then there is always something (doc appt, car repair, house stuff) in there somewhere.
Best part is the flexibility to do things during weekdays. Meet with friend/family for lunch, random escape room, errands.
Worst part is not having the camaraderie of good coworkers working together. I had one job that was great in that respect and gave me lasting friends. Other jobs not at all.
Financial freedom is amazing but everyone handles it differently. Best advice I have is if retirement is an option see if you can try it for 3-12 months.
At this point, I could retire, but I have no idea what to do with the rest of my life. I feel like I have achieved all I could (which is very wrong, but that's how it feels)
I'm no longer young and I have family, so simply packing my bags and touring the world is out. Can't take my kids for a 1y world tour either, the school system doesn't allow it. Going on expeditions would saddle my wife with the full child care, something I dare not ask. Just staying at home for the kids would probably get boring.
I did like to code, but 10y in enterprise have cooled me to it somewhat and I feel my age. Just joining some OSS project to kill time isn't that great either if you just dropped your coding job.
I don't really know how to socialize and have no (next to no) friends. And those that I have, I tend to neglect for some reason.
I have some ADHD traits and the older I get, the harder I find it to focus for longer times or concentrate deeply enough to really solve challenging problems, so I doubt I'll start 3D-printing the next drone generation or rebuild a vintage car or something.
It's a weird problem to have, but I feel like not retiring so I don't bore myself to death.
What about picking up a hobby where long stretches of concentration aren't needed and there can be a slight social angle?
I personally would love to have more time for solo board gaming or board gaming online? With board gaming the social interaction is on rails with the game, the same goes for joining a book club or more non-cognitively with solo or pair dancing. And then there is the meditative path.
I could do all that, it's just that nothing "clicks" in the sense that I really want to do it, instead of doing it to pass time.
That sounds like depression and maybe it is, but I feel it's got more to do with the "I have achieved all I wanted in life, wife, kids, wealth, whoops, now what?" thing. When I was younger, every item of that list seemed like a challenge, and now that they are behind me, I realize I never planned for it.
Also when I was younger, I was just day dreaming when I wasn't busy and I was content. Now that I feel that I only have a couple of decades left, I feel the need to no longer waste my time. That kinda clashes with the lack of ambition.
Work helps in the sense that I have social interaction outside the family and some problems to solve, but I also feel I am just papering over a void.
Maybe "not waste time" means do something big and important, impactful. But that feels overwhelming and that prevents you from getting started, which can manifest as lack of ambition. Once you work on something for a bit, you start feeling driven.
The German school system doesn't take kindly to this, AFAIK. Maybe if we temporarily gave up residency, but as far as I know, the equivalent of CPS would have some questions.
Yes. A friend was homeschooling her kids in the US, and then her husband got an assignment in Germany for about a year. She took the kids and joined her husband in Germany for a few months. The rules were all different, and much stricter in Germany. I remember she was thinking of trying to continue to home school there, and keep her kids inside during school hours, and try to slide under the radar. I don't remember if she got away with it or not.
If I may say so, your friend isn't the brightest candle on the cake if she didn't research the rules before and then tried to dodge them. I bet she would have cried foul murder if CPS came to her house and threatened to take away her kids...
I double checked, and my friend successfully got away with homeschooling her kids in Germany. This was over five years ago. She thinks that maybe because she's American, they didn't follow up as much as they would have with a German citizen. She also told me today that she was there for almost a year, not a few months.
I retired a few years ago on my savings, but I won the lottery as an early Airbnb employee (and I only recently cashed out). I've worked for several high-flying SV startups, and one BigCo, and startup multiple of my own startups (which all failed). I'm around 35 y/o now. I really grew to despise the whole of SV culture, the various get rich quick schemes based on screwing your customers, and capitalism is general. These days my only ambition is to farm on my homestead/commune, live as cheaply as possible, and avoid consumerism as much as I can. I still love working on software, am pretty active on various open source projects, am writing another book, but I don't feed the beast anymore.
Retirement is great and you shouldn't let anyone talk you out of it. The guys at the top of the pyramid aren't working very hard, so why should you?
To quote Kurt Vonnegut: "I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different."
Please don’t listen to this. These are the words of someone who allowed work to destroy the part of themselves that had their own hopes and dreams. Only a shell that could take directions was left.
This is mind boggling. Bored? You have all your free time to literally do anything you want. You can explore the outdoors. You can learn ANYTHING you want. You could get to know more of the worlds 6 billion people and their cultures. Volunteer, start a new hobby, spend more time with family and friends, work on personal growth, exercise... you have Stockholm syndrome, snap out of it.
Not the person you're replying to, and not retired, but I can offer some perspective as someone that does indeed like the job.
If I retired I'd be able to learn anything I want - but If I wanted to tackle the challenges I have fun tackling, state-of-the-art and involving some nifty constraints and difficulties... I'd need whole teams around me, and a large infrastructure comparable to a multinational company.
That's what I get now - working. If I retired, I could only find it, I think, by getting the same job.
If I'm already working there, doing the stuff that I find fun, in a schedule that fits me and keeps me healthy and safe, and already relatively financially secure - to the point where I don't have to bother with focusing on corporate ladder or anything like that - what do I gain by retiring? At least on this aspect (there is obviously a tradeoff)
Not to mention I get to do some empowered volunteering from within the company itself. It helps that I actually have respect for the leadership, up to the CEO, as actual human beings. Not reverence - respect. Specially looking at some other companies out there.
I have a whole other perspective. But toss me into a meatgrinder job and I agree with you immediately.
Finally, I hope you see how your comment on Stockholm syndrome and snapping out of it was mean and ignorant towards the parent poster
Your comment describes my perspective almost to a T. I used to put a lot of stock in the idea of retiring early and then being free to do whatever I wanted, but what I want is to build interesting things as a team, i.e., exactly what I have always done.
I think many people are trapped by this dream of attaining financial freedom so they can escape work, but in a way that is a cynical take because it presumes that if you are getting paid to do something then it must be something bad that you wouldn't do otherwise.
Such a mindset is unfortunate because harbouring escapist fantasies is a really good way to undermine one's ability to find the joy in what they "have" to do. I spent over a decade not realising that I wasn't suffering from work, but from my hangups about work.
My advice to those who hate not only their job but any conceivable job, and who nonetheless have a job, is to get as good an understanding about why that is as possible. Reflect on it. Try moving around and changing your environment. Try different jobs. Try jobs that have one redeeming thing about them and seem awful in other ways.
The goal isn't to find the perfect job, i.e., the one that fits all your preconceived notions of what you want out of life, but rather to develop an understanding of what your assumptions are and where they come from. It is a useful mindset to be open-minded about what you really want and how you might get that.
Yeah that all sounds nice until you start to budget it. No way I could keep myself busy with the money I have. I guess this question really depends on if you have the financial means to retire _and keep yourself entertained for the rest of your life_. I don't.
By my observation people who have not experienced extended periods of free time are the ones who have this reaction, and the people that have actually experienced it are the ones saying it's easy to become bored or even depressed. I think it's just one of those things that's hard to imagine until you actually experience it.
I disagree. I've worked taken two extended periods off of work (6 months and 18+ months). I was busy most of the time because I have a life outside of work.
I'm sure there are some people that can keep themselves happily busy, but I've seen these kinds of threads about early retirement come up now and then in different places and always its the same: people who have not had a lot of free time incredulous or even seemingly offended that anyone would be happier working, and then many accounts of people that actually retired early saying it made them bored or depressed.
Alternatively, I've taken a year+ off multiple times in my life for "funemployement" and I was quite antsy and bored and restless but also lacked motivation to do much. I think it depends on the person.
Not everyone is wired the same way. Yes it is nice to go and explore the outdoors (no one can disagree with that usually). But you cannot look down on someone because they choose to do otherwise. The point is that people should do what THEY want to do if they have the freedom to choose.
You should update your world facts database, we’ve been on the 7 billion revision for over a decade, and are about to tick over again. Currently at 7.898B humans alive.
I can see this for some jobs. Retire from the army and suddenly you are not jumping out of planes anymore, but programming? Nothing is stopping you from doing that post retirement, and you get to work on whatever you want.
Sure there is. When millions of people use your software you have to consider what those millions want. I guess it depends on what you enjoy about software development. For me I enjoy the craft itself and only let users in because I have bills to pay. My best work is stuff nobody will ever use or care about. It's like being a pop artist VS a relatively unknown experimental jazz musician.
Many finds value in doing stuff other people wants. Work is the most efficient way to do that, you write something and now millions of people can use it. When you write your own pet project nobody cares about it is depressing in comparison.
Of course you can care about other things, but if you care about this thing then work is the easiest way to fill that fix.
A job being your identity is a health challenge to be worked through with a therapist. Enjoy your job, for sure, but you make it your identity is to create expectations that cannot be met when unavoidable life transitions occur. A job is what you do, not who you are.
If done in a healthy way, where it contributes to but is not the entirety of your identity, yes. It's a complex topic with a lot of nuance I can't boil down into a single comment.
I enjoy coding quite a lot, but I have enough other hobbies and interests, so if I didn't code ever again, I'd just focus more on other things that I enjoy.
Actually you are what you do. People can quit their job anytime they want to; most just lack the courage and fortitude to attempt living without a solid income and utilize all manner of emotionally based arguments to make them think this is not the true reason they do just that.
Some people simply don't have a choice of whether to work or not... The difference is between being home and being homeless.
A lot of the posts in here are based on a singular view and it worries me.
Only some of us are very fortunate to be in a position where we can simply quit our job or pivot to a new way of life, but the majority of people in the world cannot do that and survive well. We should never forget the need to be able to consider walking in the shoes of others.
I think there is a lot of truth to it. I would guess for the majority of people here, they deeply identify as tech workers and it is a huge part of their being. Hopefully it isn't everyone's entire life though.
Being laid off and not finding new work so you’re forced to retire which is the opposite of choosing to retire early. And it’s sad, I hope that doesn’t happen to me.
I'm sorry to say this, but this is one of the saddest things a person can say in my opinion. You can definitely become your job, but I can't see myself ever wanting something like that.
A teacher impressed on me at a formative age that I wasn't likeable enough that people would ever respect me unless I did good work. I'm definitely reliant on my work (though no particular job) as a core part of my identity, but it's a mutually beneficial relationship overall. Tough love but insightful/fair advice in retrospect.
I have a quote that I put in my office in a prominent place. It says "Work done in the spirit of service is the highest form of worship." I really believe that and try to make my work a force of good. I feel too much work is a bad thing, but too little unfulfilling work is also not good.
Some people feel that if they were sufficiently rich, they will never work. I think one source of this view are the health effects of the sedentary lifestyle associated with tech, and I respect people who say that. It's all to common for people to be overworked in tech, so I understand people who want to exit for that reason too.
Still others, don't really enjoy work at all and would exit the workforce if given the opportunity. I respect that view too but it's not for me.
Because even if I had unlimited financial; resources I NEED to still work. I believe work, especially the kind that you feel is helping people and results in deep concentration called flow is beneficial for my mental health.
If I stopped working and entered a perma-vacation, I would go out of my mind. There are only so many golf courses, and so many days you can wake up late, before I would be bored out of my mind. When I go on vacation, I enjoy it and need it. But after about a week, I start to get bored and to miss work. I need a challenge.
There is a nice documentary called Born Rich by Jamie Johnson (one of the heirs to the Johnson & Johnson empire's wealth) in which he films the sons and daughters of billionaires (it's on YouTube). What I found fascinating is the happiest ones seemed to be those that applied themselves by working or in one case applying themselves in academia all the way to a PhD.
Even if I stopped my current start-up, I think I would find myself spending a few months catching up on technologies I didn't have the chance to catch up on, and imagine I would just start a new start-up after that.
When you are caught in a job you don't much like, time flies, but you are time poor. But may have some money.
I have been out of work for a long while, and family uses up lots of time. But I have always suffered with balance, programming entirely consumes me, and I ebb and flow with it. I feel totally disconnected and disenchanted with it and have no money and lots of debt.
And have no job security or fallback. Given a good manager and the right position I could happily amble along and be a useful asset.
But I am very disillusioned with web work and the industry. And I think web programming is a tremendously wasteful brain drain.
However if I had money and time, my perspective would be totally different!
Not here, never was and never will be. Its just a job regardless how creative it can be, life is about myriad other things, cool, great, actually important.
But to each their own, my perspective is that I don't want to have work-related regrets (ideally no regrets at all) when dying, and me being my job would definitely be #1 or #2 on such a list.
I would change it to "you are what you can", which expands possibilities up to the sky (with paragliding, sky is included)
Good question. I was fired, so I guess my case doesn't apply to OP. I also had enough in the bank that I don't need to follow orders from someone who's never made a mix tape, which is what would happen if I tried to rejoin the workforce.
30 years programming and got sick of it. Started to travel around the world 2 years before Covid.
Was kind of semi retired but still CTO and directed the team on projects and issues.
Then Covid hit.
Now went back to work full time rebuilding systems but looking forward to jump into semi-retirement next year again.
The most important thing I learned?
Time.
I’ll do anything to preserve time freedom. Housekeeper, transportation, people to do stuff for me. I’ll do it all to save this precious resource.
And these are not things that cost a lot, but because I do them, I have more time to spend on myself.
Having the freedom of time is completely underrated and misunderstood and I reckon that most people do not know what to do with the extra time once they step back from the daily grind.
This is a tricky issue to struggle with, and I've done a fair amount of thinking on this. I think that it's worthwhile to become knowledgeable and capable in everything that you hire someone for. There are exceptions which are impossible, like being a doctor, but by and large I think most work is learnable. I just don't think it's okay to say "oh I'm just not a math person, or a person who does physical labor, or a person who can fix a car". Certainly, learning a variety of fields takes time and isn't economically optimal, but that's not what's important.
In the example of cleaning your own home, everyone should be able to do that barring a disability. Learn how to do it, learn to do it well, then offload it to someone else and routinely ensure you know how to do it well. I think a similar approach is useful in business as well. I think middle managers and execs give themselves way too strong of a pass on understanding how to actually do the jobs in their own company. This is partially why so many managers have almost no idea how their internal systems actually work.
We are all different in our expectations and desires. Ofcourse, It would be great to have that financial independence to say I don't "need" to work anymore for money. However, I am happy to work with computers at my job that pays money, be with my family and play with my little boy while not working, and do wood working in spare time(3 hours a week). Little bit of everything makes you appreciate their value. I for one would be easily overwhelmed if I could do woodworking the whole time, or watching my little boy the whole time(I love him, but I love him more when he is social with his friends at day care and I am there for him when he is home).
If I had a way to make more money without losing the ^ balance, I'd jump on it. But, I am not running crazy behind any one of those.
I realise what I said would probably not make sense to me from 10 years ago - it was all about fun, and money then.
Haha, I was into carpentry from a young adult age. I'm not retired but it's still a hobby. It's just nice to work with your hands and build something physical after staring at a screen all day.
i'm 38, about to be 39... and i'm semi-retired. built a great career around software and then got a bit lucky with investing... and now that's kinda on auto-pilot.
i'm actually trying to figure out what i want to do in the next 40 years of my life. i like building stuff and still have an exciting "tech startup" on the side.
i have 3 kids and so my focus is mostly on making sure they don't kill themselves... and get them to 18 and then pray. lol.
life is just as frustrating as it was before i was retired... the frustrations just changed though.
When I was 18 I started working on one very interesting problem. All my life I dreamed about solving that problem, but coudn't, because needed to earn money for family etc. Struck it rich at 52, and since then pursuing my goal, living around the world in 5 star all inclusive hotels.
I left my job with no future plans about a year ago. I was able to do this thanks to the company going through an IPO a few years prior and aggressive savings/investing in my 20's. I am 35 now.
What worked well for me:
1. Having a supportive partner. I am very lucky that my partner has not murdered me considering how much time we are at home together with her working all day from home and me not working. I know if roles were reversed, I would have a hard time.
2. Having existing hobbies that require time and discipline. Most of my hobbies are pretty cheap: running, reading, gaming, and cooking. The problem is, these all require time and discipline, which I used to not have. I treat my "hobbies" like a job and actually schedule time for each of these on a weekly basis. It's amazing how much time you can fill with stuff you love. It is also amazing how much more discipline you can have in your hobbies when you are not spending all of your "discipline points" on work. An exception for me is travel, which requires money, but not as much as you think if you fly on random weekdays and stay in hotels during off-peak times. Of course this has been limited during COVID.
3. Having some part time technical work. For me, this was taking on some advising and mentoring roles. I get paid for some of them, but mostly I do it because I enjoy it and I feel it keeps me connected enough to the rest of the technical world.
What did not work well:
1. Doing this during COVID. I was completely naive in thinking that we would be going through this for a "few more months" last year. Not being able to see family and friends was made even harder because I cut off my social connections from my work colleagues (I was lucky that I really liked most of my work colleagues). In hindsight, I wish I had thought through this more.
2. Alcohol consumption and other vices. Since I did not have to be up every morning at 7am anymore, I was staying up late and drinking ~5 nights a week. What got me to stop was my supportive partner identifying this for me and also seeing the liquor store bills add up. Thankfully, I was able to shake it, but it took about two months to change my habits.
3. Obsessing over the stock market. Since my assets are 90% tied to equities, I was obsessing daily over the green and red lines. This is somewhat common in a lot of FI/RE threads, but I realized that my very concentrated portfolio was stressing me out. I created a plan to slowly rebalance over the coming years, probably giving up some potential future gains, but the short term sanity gain is important to me.
Unexpected benefits:
1. Rarely waiting in lines. I can goto the bank or grocery store at 10:30am. I can goto a gym at 2pm. I still wonder why/how a lot of places are open during these hours, but I get to benefit from it.
2. Sleeping schedule fixed. While working, I was notorious for staying up late to get something done, sleeping 6-8 hours (which is pretty good), and feeling exhausted when I woke up. On weekends, I would rarely get up before noon because I was so tired. After stopping work, my sleep schedule has moved to a pretty fixed 10pm-6:30am and I no longer am a night owl. Nothing wrong with being a night owl, but I thought I was one for a long time, and turns out, I am not.
3. Exploring local area. With my limited vacation time, whenever we wanted to take time off, we would always hop on a plane and go somewhere. Having time and COVID restrictions had me exploring more locally (running trails, businesses, cafes, libraries). I have a much deeper appreciation for what local governments do to make the places we live more enjoyable.
Overall, I am very happy with the decision. I have no idea if I will end up going back to work or not. I realize that I am in the 0.0000001% of people that is lucky enough to be even thinking like this.
I retired just barely over a year ago. I expected to take about a year just to recover from the stress that had built up over the years (only a few significant vacations) and accelerated at my last job (never more than a day or two at a time for 3.5 years). So I spent a lot of time doing absolutely nothing. I binge-watched several shows on TV, read a lot, played video games, etc. I kept up with my share of housework and parenting duties, but that's about it.
I always knew I couldn't live like that indefinitely. There are plenty of nasty disparaging comments here from kids who've clearly never worked long enough or hard enough or had a strong enough sense of responsibility to get that weary, but there is a tiny nugget of truth to some of what they say. Some structure and goals are necessary to stay sane IMO. Even during my idle period I mostly stuck to my routine. No sleeping in until noon, not bothering to get dressed, etc.
In the last couple of months, I've kind of come out of hibernation. I haven't started any major projects, but I've made several upgrades to the decor especially in my own room. There's even art on the walls. OK, one wall. ;) I refinished a couple of pieces of furniture. I've gotten into resin crafting, especially things that glow. At some point I expect I'll dabble a bit in 3D printing to complement that. When the pandemic conditions ease and my daughter (currently a senior in HS) is safely ensconced in college, I'll probably do a bit more traveling, but still mostly short activity-focused trips - e.g. hiking or snowboarding in mid-week, depending on the season.
I even have a couple of ideas for apps, completely unrelated to what I used to do professionally (distributed filesystems and such FWIW) and I absolutely will not get all wrapped up in all of the non-coding things that make professional development such a grind. Contrary to what the callow youth say, it's not necessary to push that hard to feel happy and fulfilled. People make themselves that way, but that's their choice and it's not mine any more. I'll write the code to do what I want it to do, probably publish it somewhere/somehow, but I'm not going to get tied down handling demands from over-entitled users.
So basically my life is getting back to almost what it was before, just a little bit better. Instead of getting crushed under the weight of responsibility at work, I spend the same part of each day doing a variety of things as the mood strikes me. When something starts to feel like a grind, I context switch. That freedom is IMO the whole point of retirement, and what any mentally healthy person should strive for.
I was always taking things apart as a kid (usually breaking them), started with computers my jr year in high school, and won the U of L ACM programming contest that year. I have always loved programming. I billed Ford 300 hours one month when I was 25 and working as a contractor, and that was time actually working. But even though I have always worked long hours, it was always more like play than work and I never felt burned out.
I ran a web business from age 38-45 with a co-founder and we worked our asses off 7 days a week, 10-12 hours a day. Still, I never got burned out, rarely took any time off (single, no kids). He bought me out after 7 years because I wanted to do a backup thing and he wanted to expand the web business. Made a good hunk of cash from that over the 5 year buyout.
I wrote a Prime minicomputer emulator and licensed it for around 12 years. One customer paid for my rather frugal (by choice, not necessity) lifestyle.
At 49 I released the first version of HashBackup and have continued that the last 12 years. I'm not taking money for it because so far, I haven't needed it, and dealing with money is a pain.
My personal life was practically non-existent in my 20's because I worked so much (loved it too), but looking back I'm glad that I sacrified personal life for career. It has always given me the option of turning down work I wasn't interested in and leaving jobs I was no longer interested in. I never had to take a job for money. Having a spouse and kids obviously makes that a lot harder.
I feel like there are always trade-offs in life. I have a $22/mo cell plan from puretalkusa.com, am grandfathered in on the "Everyday Low Price" internet plan from Time Warner (now Spectrum) that originally was a whopping 3Mbit down/1Mbit up for $15/mo, but over time is now 20Mbit down/1.2Mbit up for $27/mo. I was recently rear-ended and had to buy a car, but bought a 2018 Acura RDX with 30K miles for $26K instead of a new one for $46K. I also bought a completely rebuilt 1918 mahogany Steinway B a couple of years ago, so I'm not shy about spending money, but it's also fun to beat corporations at their pricing games. I buy clothes at Goodwill most of the time, because I hate shopping and if I buy something at GW I don't like, I just give it back and don't feel bad that I spent $75 on a shirt that I don't like when I get home. I buy all my Macs and phones on eBay for usually half price.
In a lot of cases, people have choices in life, but they sometimes don't spend much time thinking about how their choices affect their life. I see people in brand new trucks that cost $60K+ and it makes me wonder why anyone would do that.
If a person wastes money over a lifetime, I think they will have a lot more financial struggles and maybe never have the option to retire early. I've always been frugal because having money gives me choices and options.
A key thing to being happy in retirement IMO is to take care of yourself and have at least a few things you are passionate about, whether it's side projects, music, sports, poker night, or whatever. I try to make the most of each day, even if I'm not getting paid for it.
I love DIY so I've used that time to refurbish two apartments and catch up on gold rush. This time it's been 8 months and I'm just working on a side project.
By now I'm not enjoying that much anymore. It's been too long and I start to miss making part of the bunch. I'm also not fully using my time anymore, partially because in the end my wife is still working as well as my friends. I believe there's a limit to happiness when you do things on your own and don't share. At least I'm realizing that. I guess it's time to go back!
Also I wonder if I'll still be able to do this when I'm in my 40s or 50s. My parents always taught me it gets tougher to find a job as you get older. Obviously someone that's good will always find, but I wonder in general how aging will apply to tech.
Edit: As a follow up thought and this is what I've realized, the weekends are a pretty good picture of how we'd behave at retirement. If we are lazy on weekends, we'll be lazy afterwards. If we keep ourselves busy in the weekends with non work stuff, we'll probably be the same after retirement.