People need work to be happy. That doesn't have to be, say, office work necessarily: it can be making music full time, or volunteering at a hospital, or any number of other things.
But you have to have something keeping you busy that makes you feel like you have a purpose.
You’re on the right track, but I think it’s a bit deeper than just needing something to work on or stay busy with. I effectively retired a few years ago and have spent the time since engaging in various “work” across the kinds of categories you mention. Yet, all of these efforts have carried a sense of purposelessness—a lingering question of whether any of it truly matters, especially knowing I could stop tomorrow without significantly impacting my wellbeing.
This contrasts sharply with the purpose I felt when I had less money and was struggling to build my business. Back then, everything felt deeply do-or-die meaningful. Now, no amount of exercise, goodwill, or intellectual pursuits compares in terms of providing that same sense of purpose.
I don’t think humans need the pursuit of money itself to be happy, but once the foundational needs in Maslow’s hierarchy are met, the higher levels often feel less urgent—and, paradoxically, less fulfilling. There seems to be diminishing returns from “work” as a source of purpose.
As someone who kind of quasi temporarily retired early a few times this is the biggest problem I see. I learned foreign languages and programming languages out of pure necessity to survive and it was thrilling to succeed and make money with them.
So everyone (at least me) has this fantasy of how much better it would be to learn things on their own schedule for pleasure without undue pressure, but they don’t realize the pressure to survive was what made it feel so meaningful without that they soon fall into dilletantism.
For all his issues I think this is why Musk has gotten so much done, because he ups the ante enough to feel real risk if be fails.
> So everyone (at least me) has this fantasy of how much better it would be to learn things on their own schedule for pleasure without undue pressure, but they don’t realize the pressure to survive was what made it feel so meaningful without that they soon fall into dilletantism.
The trick is to find a place between dilletantism and burnout.
Our species, like all living things, has optimised towards struggling through life to the best of their ability (which was always limited). To "win" within the already apex species of humanity means you are hitting your head on the ceiling of what your body and brain was made for, hard.
This is why I stopped striving for success on that scale and returned to only work a small software job.
> a lingering question of whether any of it truly matters, especially knowing I could stop tomorrow without significantly impacting my wellbeing.
A suggestion for your consideration, or that of anyone in a similar position: give enough of the money away that this stops being true, and find fulfilling paid work (not necessarily in that order). I strongly suspect, from my own experience, that there's an amount of savings that you can keep that is adequate to remove any worry about winding up on the streets (or being stuck with work that actually turns out to suck, etc), without making further earning feel pointless to your own comfort. I think there's an ethical case for doing this even if it made you less happy, but even better if it's win-win.
Totally agree. But it can be surprisingly hard to find what this is for yourself when you are used to climbing the school / corporate / startup ladder your whole life.
But you have to have something keeping you busy that makes you feel like you have a purpose.