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Late 20s here, in a more advantageous financial situation than the folks in the article. I honestly don't know what I'd do with myself. I'd be lying if I said

by sparky_ 10y ago

Late 20s here, in a more advantageous financial situation than the folks in the article. I honestly don't know what I'd do with myself. I'd be lying if I said early retirement hadn't crossed my mind, but just from the experience of taking a month or two off work between jobs, I'm 100% certain I'd be bored out of my mind. If one were to retire at 40, then what? Even spending a full 5 years traveling the world and screwing around, that leaves you another 40 or 45 years of idleness. Maybe I'm just not the type for this, but I'd have to do _something_ productive.

yaegers 10y ago
I never really got the "wouldn't know what to do with myself" argument. Especially with people who work in IT. First, I would occupy my time with hobbies. With all that time I could try anything I wanted that looks interesting. And if I really had to do something, as a programmer, I could contribute to open source projects. Being retired would give me enough time to help out in these projects or simply further educate myself in new technologies that I find interesting. There is no much to do. But I can't get myself to do most of these things because after a full work day I am exhausted and don't have the drive to do much besides surfing the net while the TV is on in the background.
nathan_f77 10y ago
The scary thing is that some people have all these plans for their retirement, like working on their hobbies, or getting back into something creative. But once you finally get there, you might realize that you've lost whatever you had. Either you forgot how to do everything, or the field has moved on without you, or you lost the passion itself, which is the saddest thing. I recently experienced some form of that. I just got back into things like music, acting, writing, and filmmaking after a very long hiatus. I was never really that good at anything, but now I feel very rusty. And everything I do is bad. And somehow I don't feel quite as creative as I used to be. But I'm going to keep working on it, because I feel like I need to have a change from software development. But if you asked me what I would do if I could retire right now and not have to worry about money, then it would be this, as well as working on electronics and software projects, maybe learning how to weld or do woodworking. There's a lot of fun things to do, and cool things to make. I guess that's not for everyone, though. Even if you decide to pursue a fulfilling career where you enjoy everything about your job, don't let that be the only thing in your life. The world is much bigger than that.

by sparky_ 10y ago

yaegers 10y ago

I never really got the "wouldn't know what to do with myself" argument. Especially with people who work in IT. First, I would occupy my time with hobbies. With all that time I could try anything I wanted that looks interesting. And if I really had to do something, as a programmer, I could contribute to open source projects. Being retired would give me enough time to help out in these projects or simply further educate myself in new technologies that I find interesting. There is no much to do. But I can't get myself to do most of these things because after a full work day I am exhausted and don't have the drive to do much besides surfing the net while the TV is on in the background.

nathan_f77 10y ago

The scary thing is that some people have all these plans for their retirement, like working on their hobbies, or getting back into something creative. But once you finally get there, you might realize that you've lost whatever you had. Either you forgot how to do everything, or the field has moved on without you, or you lost the passion itself, which is the saddest thing. I recently experienced some form of that. I just got back into things like music, acting, writing, and filmmaking after a very long hiatus. I was never really that good at anything, but now I feel very rusty. And everything I do is bad. And somehow I don't feel quite as creative as I used to be. But I'm going to keep working on it, because I feel like I need to have a change from software development. But if you asked me what I would do if I could retire right now and not have to worry about money, then it would be this, as well as working on electronics and software projects, maybe learning how to weld or do woodworking. There's a lot of fun things to do, and cool things to make. I guess that's not for everyone, though. Even if you decide to pursue a fulfilling career where you enjoy everything about your job, don't let that be the only thing in your life. The world is much bigger than that.