4 ms·

What are you planning to do with all that financial independence? If the answer is, "Live a meaningful and satisfying life." then... some people seek out work

What are you planning to do with all that financial independence? If the answer is, "Live a meaningful and satisfying life." then... some people seek out work that gives them some of that while they are earning money. Obviously, the idea that work can provide all of the meaning in your life is a toxic meme that leads to people being exploited. But the idea that work should provide no meaning is equally toxic. You're going to spend most of your waking hours during the healthiest stretch of your life at work. That is way too much to sacrifice for a job that is soulless surrounded by people you care nothing for. Meaning is king, everything else is window dressing; only meaning gives you a reason to get out of bed in the morning. The sooner you start finding avenues for that in your life, the sooner you'll realize you don't need to focus completely on some distant exit strategy like financial independence.

notreallyserio 5y ago
> What are you planning to do with all that financial independence? Read more, improve my cooking skills, learn how to play chess, try out a month-long vacation, play video games, learn some art skills, exercise... I'm sure I'm missing some things. I can do a little bit of these a small amount of the time but it's not enough to enjoy, as long as I'm working. Maybe there are jobs I'd enjoy but I kind of doubt it. I haven't found a job that I'd say I want to do until I'm in my 60s, that's for sure.
- jleyank 5y ago
  If you’re in the us, make sure your pile is big enough to cover health care 55-65, kid college expenses and parental care. These are big bucks. Get as much as possible paid off before you pull the plug.
fdgsdfogijq 5y ago
What are you planning to do with all that financial independence? This question is a pet pieve of mine. The number of good answers is endless, and its sad that you would even ask it. Working is slavery, however you want to slice it.
- munificent 5y ago
  > The number of good answers is endless. So why wait until retirement to start seeking them? > Working is slavery, however you want to slice it. This is a thought-terminating cliche. Slavery is slavery. Working is an arrangement you enter into voluntarily with a series of pros and cons for all participants. Is the CEO if a company a slave? The researcher who finds a cure for a disease a family member died from? A musician in a touring band? An author with a book deal? It's your life and I respect your choice to live it how you want, but if you have an idea that work is a thing to be suffered for as little as possible until you reach payday and then you retire and your real life starts... you are almost certainly on track for a completely miserable life both before and after your retirement. Take a look at the kind of people who have the greatest life satisfaction. How many of them went down the FIRE path versus building their entire life in a meaningful way?
  - Apocryphon 5y ago
    What you’re saying is undeniably true. At the same time when one considers high-tech as practiced by Silicon Valley and Seattle big tech companies and startups, it’s easy to see how people could become cynical towards work. Cultish company cultures, dishonest pontificating business leaders, market forces that incentivize disloyalty, undergirded by some truly unaffordable housing costs- it’s easy to see how people can get burned out by false promises of work, at least in this industry. It doesn’t help that tech is particularly preachy in its delusions of morality, unlike say, the financial industry. And as with such industries or industry scenes where big amounts of money involved, as in Wall Street or Hollywood, people who get into Silicon Valley tend to view things through a purely transactional lens after a while. After all, that’s how these workplaces view them- not as repositories of higher meaning, but as interchange economic producers. Such is the nature of dumb money.
  - 888666 5y ago
    Seeking financial independence is more about having the freedom to choose whether to keep working or not. Many pursue the FI over the RE and find great joy and meaning in their work. If you'd be in deep trouble if you suddenly lost your job because you're not financially independent, then yes I think you're a slave to your job. People in FIRE communities constantly say to build the life you want to live and then save for it. Not enjoying the journey is a FIRE failure.
jseban 5y ago
> only meaning gives you a reason to get out of bed in the morning. The sooner you start finding avenues for that in your life, the sooner you'll realize you don't need to focus completely on some distant exit strategy like financial independence. The problem is that meaning is undefined and this leads you down a rabbit hole of trying to figure out what is the meaning of life, which will make you very disappointed and lead to constructing a psychological bubble of "beliefs" that you appoint as facts to find a way out of this burdensome brooding. Not everyone wants to live a lie like that, and have that sort of pseudo religious lifestyle. It's much easier to just go for the highest paying job, then making sure to also do some good (if you feel like it's too "evil"), by for example donating some of your salary, or doing some volunteer work. Why is this better? Because it's clear practical actionable goals that you can rely on, and that you know will have the desired outcome. But it's more work to do this, assigning some superficial "meaning" to your job that you demand of all people around to validate and support, it's a way to be more lazy, to turn your social circle into a mini-cult where you all tell each other that you really can have the cake and eat it too.
- mwcampbell 5y ago
  > It's much easier to just go for the highest paying job Only a few people can win that lottery. Then again, I suppose finding work that is personally satisfying and pays well enough is also like winning a lottery.
  - jseban 5y ago
    I mean: the highest job that you can possibly get, not the highest paying job in the world, obviously. And, it's not a lottery.
- hnaccount141 5y ago
  > The problem is that meaning is undefined and this leads you down a rabbit hole of trying to figure out what is the meaning of life, which will make you very disappointed and lead to constructing a psychological bubble of "beliefs" that you appoint as facts to find a way out of this burdensome brooding. To be honest, this reads to me like "I haven't found meaning in life, therefore people who say they have are lying to themselves." You're free to believe what you want, and if that's what makes you happy more power to you, but don't assume your experience is universal. I assure you it isn't.
matwood 5y ago
> Meaning is king, everything else is window dressing; only meaning gives you a reason to get out of bed in the morning. Time is king, and the closest thing we have right now (until a time machine is invented if ever) to banking time is money. More money equates to more time to do whatever it is you want.
- munificent 5y ago
  Yeah, but if the way you acquire that money is by burning time at a job you hate to earn it... all you're really doing is transferring time from your younger self to your older self. Personally, I'd rather find a job I don't hate and interleave enjoyable use of my time throughout my life.
everdrive 5y ago
>some people seek out work that gives them some of that while they are earning money. But do they find it in tech? I could understand if we were talking about doctors, firemen, artists, etc. But tech work is mostly just companies trying to push products. This isn't really evil or good, it's just economics. A lot of tech companies seem to attempt to adopt language which suggests they're doing good, but I couldn't name very many which do something other than push products. I can't remember what language they used years ago when I worked at the apple store, but it was something like "enriching lives." And a lot of the employees seemed to really believe it. Yes, if you just buy a mac rather than some other computer, your life will be "enriched." I'm not trying to be cynical; I definitely think there are some tech companies which do objective good, but these companies are in the vast minority of the tech field. If most people in tech sought "meaning" then the field would suddenly become extremely crowded around the few companies which actually produce good for the world.
- munificent 5y ago
  I definitely get being cynical about software, and a lot of it is either disposable trash or actively harmful. But I think we working in tech massively overlook the many many positive benefits of software and how much it improves the lives of people on a daily basis. I've learned how to fix my own appliances from online videos, stayed connected with friends through email, found stuff to do and avoided getting lost in unfamiliar cities through navigation, unwound with games, discovered new music and shared my music with others. All of that was because of or mediated by software. Could I have done it without, maybe. But I did use software for it, and tech deserves credit for that.
  - Apocryphon 5y ago
    Orthogonal to your point perhaps, but the problem with tech is that monopolistic megacorps are the ones who are both delivering that helpful content to you, and the surveillance technologies, dark-pattern Skinner box digital addiction devices/platforms, and whatever other negative things associated with tech. Maybe we need antitrust action just so we can better separate the “good” software companies from the “bad” ones.

notreallyserio 5y ago

> What are you planning to do with all that financial independence? Read more, improve my cooking skills, learn how to play chess, try out a month-long vacation, play video games, learn some art skills, exercise... I'm sure I'm missing some things. I can do a little bit of these a small amount of the time but it's not enough to enjoy, as long as I'm working. Maybe there are jobs I'd enjoy but I kind of doubt it. I haven't found a job that I'd say I want to do until I'm in my 60s, that's for sure.

jleyank 5y ago
If you’re in the us, make sure your pile is big enough to cover health care 55-65, kid college expenses and parental care. These are big bucks. Get as much as possible paid off before you pull the plug.

fdgsdfogijq 5y ago

What are you planning to do with all that financial independence? This question is a pet pieve of mine. The number of good answers is endless, and its sad that you would even ask it. Working is slavery, however you want to slice it.

munificent 5y ago
> The number of good answers is endless. So why wait until retirement to start seeking them? > Working is slavery, however you want to slice it. This is a thought-terminating cliche. Slavery is slavery. Working is an arrangement you enter into voluntarily with a series of pros and cons for all participants. Is the CEO if a company a slave? The researcher who finds a cure for a disease a family member died from? A musician in a touring band? An author with a book deal? It's your life and I respect your choice to live it how you want, but if you have an idea that work is a thing to be suffered for as little as possible until you reach payday and then you retire and your real life starts... you are almost certainly on track for a completely miserable life both before and after your retirement. Take a look at the kind of people who have the greatest life satisfaction. How many of them went down the FIRE path versus building their entire life in a meaningful way?
- Apocryphon 5y ago
  What you’re saying is undeniably true. At the same time when one considers high-tech as practiced by Silicon Valley and Seattle big tech companies and startups, it’s easy to see how people could become cynical towards work. Cultish company cultures, dishonest pontificating business leaders, market forces that incentivize disloyalty, undergirded by some truly unaffordable housing costs- it’s easy to see how people can get burned out by false promises of work, at least in this industry. It doesn’t help that tech is particularly preachy in its delusions of morality, unlike say, the financial industry. And as with such industries or industry scenes where big amounts of money involved, as in Wall Street or Hollywood, people who get into Silicon Valley tend to view things through a purely transactional lens after a while. After all, that’s how these workplaces view them- not as repositories of higher meaning, but as interchange economic producers. Such is the nature of dumb money.
- 888666 5y ago
  Seeking financial independence is more about having the freedom to choose whether to keep working or not. Many pursue the FI over the RE and find great joy and meaning in their work. If you'd be in deep trouble if you suddenly lost your job because you're not financially independent, then yes I think you're a slave to your job. People in FIRE communities constantly say to build the life you want to live and then save for it. Not enjoying the journey is a FIRE failure.

jseban 5y ago

> only meaning gives you a reason to get out of bed in the morning. The sooner you start finding avenues for that in your life, the sooner you'll realize you don't need to focus completely on some distant exit strategy like financial independence. The problem is that meaning is undefined and this leads you down a rabbit hole of trying to figure out what is the meaning of life, which will make you very disappointed and lead to constructing a psychological bubble of "beliefs" that you appoint as facts to find a way out of this burdensome brooding. Not everyone wants to live a lie like that, and have that sort of pseudo religious lifestyle. It's much easier to just go for the highest paying job, then making sure to also do some good (if you feel like it's too "evil"), by for example donating some of your salary, or doing some volunteer work. Why is this better? Because it's clear practical actionable goals that you can rely on, and that you know will have the desired outcome. But it's more work to do this, assigning some superficial "meaning" to your job that you demand of all people around to validate and support, it's a way to be more lazy, to turn your social circle into a mini-cult where you all tell each other that you really can have the cake and eat it too.

mwcampbell 5y ago
> It's much easier to just go for the highest paying job Only a few people can win that lottery. Then again, I suppose finding work that is personally satisfying and pays well enough is also like winning a lottery.
- jseban 5y ago
  I mean: the highest job that you can possibly get, not the highest paying job in the world, obviously. And, it's not a lottery.
hnaccount141 5y ago
> The problem is that meaning is undefined and this leads you down a rabbit hole of trying to figure out what is the meaning of life, which will make you very disappointed and lead to constructing a psychological bubble of "beliefs" that you appoint as facts to find a way out of this burdensome brooding. To be honest, this reads to me like "I haven't found meaning in life, therefore people who say they have are lying to themselves." You're free to believe what you want, and if that's what makes you happy more power to you, but don't assume your experience is universal. I assure you it isn't.

matwood 5y ago

> Meaning is king, everything else is window dressing; only meaning gives you a reason to get out of bed in the morning. Time is king, and the closest thing we have right now (until a time machine is invented if ever) to banking time is money. More money equates to more time to do whatever it is you want.

munificent 5y ago
Yeah, but if the way you acquire that money is by burning time at a job you hate to earn it... all you're really doing is transferring time from your younger self to your older self. Personally, I'd rather find a job I don't hate and interleave enjoyable use of my time throughout my life.

everdrive 5y ago

>some people seek out work that gives them some of that while they are earning money. But do they find it in tech? I could understand if we were talking about doctors, firemen, artists, etc. But tech work is mostly just companies trying to push products. This isn't really evil or good, it's just economics. A lot of tech companies seem to attempt to adopt language which suggests they're doing good, but I couldn't name very many which do something other than push products. I can't remember what language they used years ago when I worked at the apple store, but it was something like "enriching lives." And a lot of the employees seemed to really believe it. Yes, if you just buy a mac rather than some other computer, your life will be "enriched." I'm not trying to be cynical; I definitely think there are some tech companies which do objective good, but these companies are in the vast minority of the tech field. If most people in tech sought "meaning" then the field would suddenly become extremely crowded around the few companies which actually produce good for the world.

munificent 5y ago
I definitely get being cynical about software, and a lot of it is either disposable trash or actively harmful. But I think we working in tech massively overlook the many many positive benefits of software and how much it improves the lives of people on a daily basis. I've learned how to fix my own appliances from online videos, stayed connected with friends through email, found stuff to do and avoided getting lost in unfamiliar cities through navigation, unwound with games, discovered new music and shared my music with others. All of that was because of or mediated by software. Could I have done it without, maybe. But I did use software for it, and tech deserves credit for that.
- Apocryphon 5y ago
  Orthogonal to your point perhaps, but the problem with tech is that monopolistic megacorps are the ones who are both delivering that helpful content to you, and the surveillance technologies, dark-pattern Skinner box digital addiction devices/platforms, and whatever other negative things associated with tech. Maybe we need antitrust action just so we can better separate the “good” software companies from the “bad” ones.