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> I can only assume the "nothing to do" retirement crowd didn't do much when they were working, and therefore have no idea how to fill the time. Personally: Lo

> I can only assume the "nothing to do" retirement crowd didn't do much when they were working, and therefore have no idea how to fill the time. Personally: Loads of folks derive personal value and meaning out of their work, and I'm one of them. I've been out of work once for a few months, and that was with a job waiting for me at the end of the tunnel. It was eye opening how depressive it was, to be robbed of your big "thing." I'm saying this as someone with a boat load of little "things," reading, outdoorsmanship, sports, etc. The second that surety of purpose is gone, so goes my wider motivation.

moate 7y ago
There's no reason your "thing" can't be volunteering or working for a cause that you find important pro bono. Most people would define "retirement" as "no longer working for money, while using savings or other existing means of income to pay for living expenses"
- mieseratte 7y ago
  > There's no reason your "thing" can't be volunteering or working for a cause that you find important pro bono. There absolutely is a reason that it can't be my "thing," it's because it isn't!
  - moate 7y ago
    What is it about working that makes it so depressing for you to not do it? Is it the earning of money for yourself? If so, you're greedy. That's fine. Be greedy. Not a great look, but we're just being honest with ourselves. If it's "doing work that changes the way things are", once you've reached a point where you are able to retire and no longer need to work for money, there's plenty of options in just about every sector (I'm assuming yours is tech or tech adjacent being on HN and all that) where you can do meaningful work and which people would gladly accept the help of an expert on even if they can't pay them. If it's some other 3rd thing that you feel differentiates jobs from non-jobs, I'd be interested to hear what you think that is.
    - dangrossman 7y ago
      You're coming across as being purposely offensive/antagonistic, FYI. To borrow your words, "not a great look".
      - moate 7y ago
        I'm posing a hypothetical set of emotions for OP to try and understand is POV. If someone was to tell you "I get depressed if I don't work for long periods of time, because I my life feels meaningless if I'm not making money" How do you describe that person, if not "greedy"? I don't think calling greed "greed" is offensive. That isn't even saying OP actually is greedy, but that it was a possibility. To each their own. I'm trying to figure out what OP feels provides him meaning at work. If it's the money, and he gets depressed when he doesn't make money, I'm fine calling that greedy. If it's the lack of meaningful "work" you can do the work without the money. If it's a 3rd thing, I genuinely don't understand what it could be since to me work is simply "doing a task for money".
    - BurningFrog 7y ago
      Just speaking for me, what I like about work is that I'm doing important things for other people. Things that actually matter. Society is built on division of labor. I enjoy the fruits of so many people's labor in uncountable ways all day long. It's only fair that I too participate in this wonderful system and give something back. You're right that the payment is important. Calling that "greed" is a misunderstanding of that word, aside from the attempted insult. Among several things, it does serve as a check that what you do is important. That someone is willing to pay you money, shows that the work is important to that someone!
      - techsupporter 7y ago
        (I don't write the following to impugn your choices; I'm only drawing a contrast between your view of the world and mine so we can discuss the differences.) It's interesting to me that you wrote the payment is important to you because it shows that what you are doing is important. My outlook is that the thing I am paid to do is arguably the least important activity out of any I do in the world. I'm paid to ensure that a particular set of bits are turned on and off in the appropriate way so that other people can manipulate those same bits to influence how data is represented elsewhere. In essence, I feel as though I'm the digital version of a paper-pusher, merely moving reports from one end to the other. It's not bad, as such, just not something I imagine as an important thing. But, it's what the market / society / the invisible hand has decided is deserving of almost outlandlishly wealthy levels of pay, so I do it. On the other hand, the things I find most important are the activities I either don't get paid to do or I actively pay to do them. Volunteering at my library showing kids and older adults how to read and find information. Being a guide at the zoo, hanging out with animals and encouraging others to see them as worth conserving. Knocking on doors for my preferred candidate in local elections. These are all things that, should I deduce some way to continue to pay my usual bills without having to digitally-push-paper, I would happily do for the rest of my days and let someone else occupy my chair at work. That I don't get paid to do them is almost part of the charm, though I wish society valued the work highly enough that I could get paid to do one or more of those instead of dealing with the latest wrinkle in "site reliability engineering."
mikestew 7y ago
Read it as "didn't do much outside of work when they were working". I believe you understandably misread a poorly-worded sentence.
- mieseratte 7y ago
  I believe you've fundamentally misunderstood my point, there exists people for whom work is a large part of their identity and sense of purpose. Robbed of that, no amount of "Just do X" is going to matter.
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    Neither of you seems to be offering a particularly charitable interpretation to the other. Launching with "that's a pretty bold assessment" sets the tone for your own first response. The comment reads far better without that sentence. As it is, you and mikestew appear to be in violent agreement.
    - mieseratte 7y ago
      > Neither of you seems to be offering a particularly charitable interpretation to the other. Not a lot of room for uncharitable misinterpretation when one starts off with "I can only assume..." > The comment reads far better without that sentence. It certainly would!
      - dredmorbius 7y ago
        I probably should have mentioned that as well, yes. You had the choice to interpret charitably yourself, however ;-) https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        knolax 7y ago
        I'd like to interject for a moment and say that imho this entire subthread is off topic and weirdly passive-aggressive.
m0zg 7y ago
That's not the only way to "derive personal value and meaning" out of your life. I take year-long breaks after each major job switch. You do experience loss after leaving a job you enjoyed, but it passes after a few months (about 6 months for me). Then you kind of wonder why you didn't leave sooner. This is all predicated on not needing money too much. I can see how someone who doesn't have a financial cushion would feel depressed about not only having to spend savings, but also not making money to cover the living expenses. That was the hardest part to come to terms with (at least for me), even though I'm not in any way struggling financially. I'm kind of close to a point where I'd be fine to not ever even search for another job. I got plenty of other things (perhaps too many) to derive meaning from, and I don't need to get paid to properly derive it.
- trilinearnz 7y ago
  Your comment intrigues me. Care to elaborate on what kind of passive income structure you have established, to give you that "financial cushion"?
  - afterburner 7y ago
    He didn't mention passive income at all, he's just comfortable with eating away at his savings until he's employed again.
    - m0zg 7y ago
      Pretty much. You can't make all the money in the world. There's more to life than slaving away on someone else's bullshit for a buck. And make no mistake 99% of what we do at work is ultimately irrelevant bullshit that will be gone and forgotten 10 years from now. When I work, I charge pretty penny though, to sustain that kind lifestyle. I do consulting at the moment. Already made enough money this year to last me 3-4 years. Mortgage is paid off, and I have no debt at all. US tech workplace is super unfriendly to part time work, unfortunately, so instead I just "part time" by not working for a while every 3-4 years. My wife does the same thing. She left her job over a year ago, so she's not working at the moment, though she's more of a social animal, so she'll start looking in September. Me? If the tech industry disappeared today, I'd breathe a sigh of relief, and switch to brewing beer (which is something I'm pretty good at as well). As things are right now, tech is the easiest possible way for me to make the most money per hour (and therefore maximize my downtime).

moate 7y ago

There's no reason your "thing" can't be volunteering or working for a cause that you find important pro bono. Most people would define "retirement" as "no longer working for money, while using savings or other existing means of income to pay for living expenses"

mieseratte 7y ago
> There's no reason your "thing" can't be volunteering or working for a cause that you find important pro bono. There absolutely is a reason that it can't be my "thing," it's because it isn't!
- moate 7y ago
  What is it about working that makes it so depressing for you to not do it? Is it the earning of money for yourself? If so, you're greedy. That's fine. Be greedy. Not a great look, but we're just being honest with ourselves. If it's "doing work that changes the way things are", once you've reached a point where you are able to retire and no longer need to work for money, there's plenty of options in just about every sector (I'm assuming yours is tech or tech adjacent being on HN and all that) where you can do meaningful work and which people would gladly accept the help of an expert on even if they can't pay them. If it's some other 3rd thing that you feel differentiates jobs from non-jobs, I'd be interested to hear what you think that is.
  - dangrossman 7y ago
    You're coming across as being purposely offensive/antagonistic, FYI. To borrow your words, "not a great look".
    - moate 7y ago
      I'm posing a hypothetical set of emotions for OP to try and understand is POV. If someone was to tell you "I get depressed if I don't work for long periods of time, because I my life feels meaningless if I'm not making money" How do you describe that person, if not "greedy"? I don't think calling greed "greed" is offensive. That isn't even saying OP actually is greedy, but that it was a possibility. To each their own. I'm trying to figure out what OP feels provides him meaning at work. If it's the money, and he gets depressed when he doesn't make money, I'm fine calling that greedy. If it's the lack of meaningful "work" you can do the work without the money. If it's a 3rd thing, I genuinely don't understand what it could be since to me work is simply "doing a task for money".
  - BurningFrog 7y ago
    Just speaking for me, what I like about work is that I'm doing important things for other people. Things that actually matter. Society is built on division of labor. I enjoy the fruits of so many people's labor in uncountable ways all day long. It's only fair that I too participate in this wonderful system and give something back. You're right that the payment is important. Calling that "greed" is a misunderstanding of that word, aside from the attempted insult. Among several things, it does serve as a check that what you do is important. That someone is willing to pay you money, shows that the work is important to that someone!
    - techsupporter 7y ago
      (I don't write the following to impugn your choices; I'm only drawing a contrast between your view of the world and mine so we can discuss the differences.) It's interesting to me that you wrote the payment is important to you because it shows that what you are doing is important. My outlook is that the thing I am paid to do is arguably the least important activity out of any I do in the world. I'm paid to ensure that a particular set of bits are turned on and off in the appropriate way so that other people can manipulate those same bits to influence how data is represented elsewhere. In essence, I feel as though I'm the digital version of a paper-pusher, merely moving reports from one end to the other. It's not bad, as such, just not something I imagine as an important thing. But, it's what the market / society / the invisible hand has decided is deserving of almost outlandlishly wealthy levels of pay, so I do it. On the other hand, the things I find most important are the activities I either don't get paid to do or I actively pay to do them. Volunteering at my library showing kids and older adults how to read and find information. Being a guide at the zoo, hanging out with animals and encouraging others to see them as worth conserving. Knocking on doors for my preferred candidate in local elections. These are all things that, should I deduce some way to continue to pay my usual bills without having to digitally-push-paper, I would happily do for the rest of my days and let someone else occupy my chair at work. That I don't get paid to do them is almost part of the charm, though I wish society valued the work highly enough that I could get paid to do one or more of those instead of dealing with the latest wrinkle in "site reliability engineering."

mikestew 7y ago

Read it as "didn't do much outside of work when they were working". I believe you understandably misread a poorly-worded sentence.

mieseratte 7y ago
I believe you've fundamentally misunderstood my point, there exists people for whom work is a large part of their identity and sense of purpose. Robbed of that, no amount of "Just do X" is going to matter.
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  Neither of you seems to be offering a particularly charitable interpretation to the other. Launching with "that's a pretty bold assessment" sets the tone for your own first response. The comment reads far better without that sentence. As it is, you and mikestew appear to be in violent agreement.
  - mieseratte 7y ago
    > Neither of you seems to be offering a particularly charitable interpretation to the other. Not a lot of room for uncharitable misinterpretation when one starts off with "I can only assume..." > The comment reads far better without that sentence. It certainly would!
    - dredmorbius 7y ago
      I probably should have mentioned that as well, yes. You had the choice to interpret charitably yourself, however ;-) https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - knolax 7y ago
        I'd like to interject for a moment and say that imho this entire subthread is off topic and weirdly passive-aggressive.

m0zg 7y ago

That's not the only way to "derive personal value and meaning" out of your life. I take year-long breaks after each major job switch. You do experience loss after leaving a job you enjoyed, but it passes after a few months (about 6 months for me). Then you kind of wonder why you didn't leave sooner. This is all predicated on not needing money too much. I can see how someone who doesn't have a financial cushion would feel depressed about not only having to spend savings, but also not making money to cover the living expenses. That was the hardest part to come to terms with (at least for me), even though I'm not in any way struggling financially. I'm kind of close to a point where I'd be fine to not ever even search for another job. I got plenty of other things (perhaps too many) to derive meaning from, and I don't need to get paid to properly derive it.

trilinearnz 7y ago
Your comment intrigues me. Care to elaborate on what kind of passive income structure you have established, to give you that "financial cushion"?
- afterburner 7y ago
  He didn't mention passive income at all, he's just comfortable with eating away at his savings until he's employed again.
  - m0zg 7y ago
    Pretty much. You can't make all the money in the world. There's more to life than slaving away on someone else's bullshit for a buck. And make no mistake 99% of what we do at work is ultimately irrelevant bullshit that will be gone and forgotten 10 years from now. When I work, I charge pretty penny though, to sustain that kind lifestyle. I do consulting at the moment. Already made enough money this year to last me 3-4 years. Mortgage is paid off, and I have no debt at all. US tech workplace is super unfriendly to part time work, unfortunately, so instead I just "part time" by not working for a while every 3-4 years. My wife does the same thing. She left her job over a year ago, so she's not working at the moment, though she's more of a social animal, so she'll start looking in September. Me? If the tech industry disappeared today, I'd breathe a sigh of relief, and switch to brewing beer (which is something I'm pretty good at as well). As things are right now, tech is the easiest possible way for me to make the most money per hour (and therefore maximize my downtime).