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> Everyone I know is scheming for the future. They’ve got big goals and get up every day and work like mad to try to achieve them. > Like—say your startup goes

> Everyone I know is scheming for the future. They’ve got big goals and get up every day and work like mad to try to achieve them. > Like—say your startup goes public and you become a billionaire. What now? What will you buy, where will you live, what will you eat for lunch? First of all, the everybody/nobody in this article is scoped to the author's circle/bubble. IME, a lot of founder types are pretty happy just working and not doing much else. After their company IPOs, they will probably just start another company. They aren't necessarily working to retire. Having enough money that you don't have to work is never a bad thing, IMO. I have a chunk of money right now from selling some stock, not enough to retire (with my lifestyle), but enough for now. Boredom is a lot easier to solve than not having enough money. (I have kids, and lots of code I want to write; I'll always be busy, and if I'm bored it's because the things I'm busy doing are boring.) I'm sure it's fair to say that retiring takes some adjustment. You can take some time to get in touch with yourself. You can work if you want. You have a lot more options. The reason people don't focus on their happiness IME is they weren't brought up to. I was brought up to go to school every day, do my homework, and achieve. Not to prioritize myself and building a fun, joyful, fulfilling life for myself. It's a matter of culture. And there are also stages of life where it makes sense to focus on one's career.

Swizec 4y ago
Yeah some of us enjoy work. People pay me to do what I started doing for fun at 9 years old? Hells yeah! More!! If I win the lottery tomorrow (IPO or otherwise), I’d probably continue to have a job of some sort. Maybe I would prioritize a different reward than cashflow, but my day to day wouldn’t change much.
- RC_ITR 4y ago
  A good model for this (don’t laugh) is Downton Abbey. Some characters are fine just chilling, some want to do a “job” like working at a hospital. But none of them have anything near the level of problems of their staff, who need their job to live.
  - slickdork 4y ago
    Yeah, I rarely like to use the word 'privileged' but that is really the definition of it: what can you do vs what you have to do.
    - taneq 4y ago
      It would be okay to use ‘privileged’ more if that’s what people actually meant by it but usually it’s code for “shouldn’t be allowed to speak”.
      - bratbag 4y ago
        Seems more like code for "speaks too much about something they have no experience of". In the context of this discussion chain, like someone wealthy enough not to have to work who won't stop talking about how starvation is not a real problem.
        Banana699 4y ago
        Notice how you subtly restricted the domain for the word to socio-economic status, where it's often clear as day, and backed up by numbers, who's privileged (the wall St. investor vacationing in the Maldives) and who's not (the starving child in Yemen). Compare and contrast that with the vast majority of other uses and users of the word, where an attribute that is far from being obviously optimal (e.g. straight and\or white and\or male) is taken as a sign that you have a better life than those of another attribute and - furthermore - that the person with this attribute is fundamentally incapable of imagining the lives of those supposedly deprieved of their invisible privileges.
        hhmc 4y ago
        I don't actually believe that _is_ the vast majority of cases of people using the word. In my experience it's ususally deployed pretty fairly (i.e. people in this discussion acknowleding their overwhelming financial privilege). Perhaps we exist in very different spheres of discussion.
- hammyhavoc 4y ago
  This is me. I'm still doing what I did when I was a kid. I've never thought of any of this as work, it's quite literally play. If I won the lottery, I'd invest it into projects for the good of the general public, and areas that need help.
paulpauper 4y ago
It would seem as if the author cherrypicked some people who retired early and got bored or are unhappy, ignoring or overlooking that possibly a larger % of people with crappy jobs feel that way too.
- saghm 4y ago
  If I'm going to be unhappy either way, I'd rather have enough money to at least be comfortable and not worry about the future. It's hard to imagine I'd be able to be as happy without at least that much, though.
  - slimsag 4y ago
    Having been on both sides of this argument, here's the other side's perspective: Picture two hamsters. Each knows they ate recently, but it's been a while. Is their owner coming back to feed them soon? They don't know, in a constant state of uncertainty. One hamster realizes that running on the wheel and being very loud sometimes causes them to get fed. They don't know it will help, but it might. So this hamster spends all their time on the wheel. The other hamster relaxes, enjoying life and trusting in what life will provide. -- Personally, I think happiness vs. work is just a tale which people like to convey as a binary choice. Neither is better than the other, because in reality it's not a binary choice but a gradient of luck. The impact of the choice isn't what matters, it's personal perspective of best outcome that matters.
    - saghm 4y ago
      I agree with your assessment that most people don't have a choice not to work, but I'm not sure I find the metaphor to be a compelling case for it. In both the hamster scenario and real life, there's a choice to work or not which has some variable effect on the likelihood of getting fed, but due to the effect of the hamster's work being minuscule compared to a human's in terms of influencing whether they're fed, the choice to work or not is easy. This might just be one of those things where I tend to interpret things too directly, but the idea that "choosing not to run on the wheel is like choosing to be happy" feels like a way less obvious interpretation than "choosing to run on the wheel is choosing to work".
oarsinsync 4y ago
> Boredom is a lot easier to solve than not having enough money...The reason people don't focus on their happiness IME is they weren't brought up to I think you hit the nail on the head but then reached an odd conclusion. The reason most people don’t prioritise their happiness is because they can’t afford to. Many people on this forum (myself, and by the sounds of things, you too) are massively financially privileged. Many of my friends are too, but many are also very much not. One of my best friends is staying in a relationship she’s unhappy in, because she can’t afford rent otherwise. It’s a shocking reminder for me how lucky I am.
- martopix 4y ago
  This is very well said, but even if you limit the scope to people who can afford it, many really struggle to let go. Including me. I have a good salary and savings and I keep saying to myself that there's nothing preventing me from having a cozy little life and stop worrying. And yet for years I kept pushing in my career in a way that didn't really make me happy, and I still struggle to let go.
  - wnolens 4y ago
    I resonate with this. I'm not 100% FI, can't simply coast from here.. but I could make it work with almost any salary given my savings and lifestyle. Yet I still interview for better paying gigs, and generally turn up the heat on a career I don't love. My answer to "why do I do that" is difficult to give..
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - borroka 4y ago
      It is difficult to answer to that question, and I do not know your specific case, your psychological make-up, your memories, your history and the way you see yourself. However, although I do not know you, I have already listed some possible, if not likely, explanations. Giving up something at which one is obviously good, for which one is recognized, and which could be the core, or if not the core, a substantial part of one's identity, is challenging. One would have to create another identity, be comfortable saying "I'm not working" when others might think there is something fishy going on, whispering to each other "I don't know what's the matter with her, she doesn't seem to work." Not getting money when there is money to be had is seen as a serious sin in certain societies in which sweat, pain, and labor are seen as virtuous and relaxing, and doing something for the sake of doing it is the occupation of the lazy and of those with noble origins. My solution has been to have no external identity, in the sense that what I am is what I can do, but not what I do. For some people I am a sportsperson, for others an aspiring writer, for another group a software engineer. To myself, I am just myself.
metacritic12 4y ago
Absolutely. There are some billionaires (Zuckerberg, like him or hate him) who seem like they're having the time of their lives in the chase. Perhaps it's just people who don't enjoy their work, that are projecting themselves onto the working rich. Once you start with a faulty axiom (working intensely isn't fun), you start getting twisted conclusions (oh it must be psychological trauma, or those people just aren't reflective). The OP seems to know the happiness literature well. He cites the studies showing emotional affect doesn't go up with money, but life satisfaction does. This seems to clearly suggest more money is >= less money. But his conclusion is literally the opposite to fit his essay's narrative: that if you make it rich, you'll just be sad and bored. This is not what empirically happens.
- borroka 4y ago
  The statement "if you get rich, you will just be sad and bored" is one of the most obvious psychological operations by the rich and wealthy I have read about. It goes hand in hand with "money doesn't buy happiness" or "there is dignity in hard work (that leads to nothing, like moving boxes from here to there)." I am earning 10 times what I was earning before -- I was living decently earlier anyway -- and my life is considerably better, with broader and deeper horizons, more creative and purposeful. I can travel wherever I want, I can help others when I can, eat the food I want. I don't go on a spending spree, I don't have a big car, fancy watches or other material possessions that can be associated with "having made it." But my life has improved a great deal. And if I had more money, my life would have even greater potential, aspirations and achievements. One might say, "But if a loved one were to die, your money would not help." Perhaps. But how would a lack of money help?
  - UncleMeat 4y ago
    Yep. You don't want to be rich, says the rich man who benefits by you being poor.
snapplebobapple 4y ago
Perhaps they weren't brought up to because when you focus on individual happiness too much society collapses? Maybe right now we are living in the ashes of the civilizations that,worked and are in the process of collapsing them by switching to individual happiness as our value metric?

Swizec 4y ago

Yeah some of us enjoy work. People pay me to do what I started doing for fun at 9 years old? Hells yeah! More!! If I win the lottery tomorrow (IPO or otherwise), I’d probably continue to have a job of some sort. Maybe I would prioritize a different reward than cashflow, but my day to day wouldn’t change much.

RC_ITR 4y ago
A good model for this (don’t laugh) is Downton Abbey. Some characters are fine just chilling, some want to do a “job” like working at a hospital. But none of them have anything near the level of problems of their staff, who need their job to live.
- slickdork 4y ago
  Yeah, I rarely like to use the word 'privileged' but that is really the definition of it: what can you do vs what you have to do.
  - taneq 4y ago
    It would be okay to use ‘privileged’ more if that’s what people actually meant by it but usually it’s code for “shouldn’t be allowed to speak”.
    - bratbag 4y ago
      Seems more like code for "speaks too much about something they have no experience of". In the context of this discussion chain, like someone wealthy enough not to have to work who won't stop talking about how starvation is not a real problem.
      - Banana699 4y ago
        Notice how you subtly restricted the domain for the word to socio-economic status, where it's often clear as day, and backed up by numbers, who's privileged (the wall St. investor vacationing in the Maldives) and who's not (the starving child in Yemen). Compare and contrast that with the vast majority of other uses and users of the word, where an attribute that is far from being obviously optimal (e.g. straight and\or white and\or male) is taken as a sign that you have a better life than those of another attribute and - furthermore - that the person with this attribute is fundamentally incapable of imagining the lives of those supposedly deprieved of their invisible privileges.
        hhmc 4y ago
        I don't actually believe that _is_ the vast majority of cases of people using the word. In my experience it's ususally deployed pretty fairly (i.e. people in this discussion acknowleding their overwhelming financial privilege). Perhaps we exist in very different spheres of discussion.
hammyhavoc 4y ago
This is me. I'm still doing what I did when I was a kid. I've never thought of any of this as work, it's quite literally play. If I won the lottery, I'd invest it into projects for the good of the general public, and areas that need help.

paulpauper 4y ago

It would seem as if the author cherrypicked some people who retired early and got bored or are unhappy, ignoring or overlooking that possibly a larger % of people with crappy jobs feel that way too.

saghm 4y ago
If I'm going to be unhappy either way, I'd rather have enough money to at least be comfortable and not worry about the future. It's hard to imagine I'd be able to be as happy without at least that much, though.
- slimsag 4y ago
  Having been on both sides of this argument, here's the other side's perspective: Picture two hamsters. Each knows they ate recently, but it's been a while. Is their owner coming back to feed them soon? They don't know, in a constant state of uncertainty. One hamster realizes that running on the wheel and being very loud sometimes causes them to get fed. They don't know it will help, but it might. So this hamster spends all their time on the wheel. The other hamster relaxes, enjoying life and trusting in what life will provide. -- Personally, I think happiness vs. work is just a tale which people like to convey as a binary choice. Neither is better than the other, because in reality it's not a binary choice but a gradient of luck. The impact of the choice isn't what matters, it's personal perspective of best outcome that matters.
  - saghm 4y ago
    I agree with your assessment that most people don't have a choice not to work, but I'm not sure I find the metaphor to be a compelling case for it. In both the hamster scenario and real life, there's a choice to work or not which has some variable effect on the likelihood of getting fed, but due to the effect of the hamster's work being minuscule compared to a human's in terms of influencing whether they're fed, the choice to work or not is easy. This might just be one of those things where I tend to interpret things too directly, but the idea that "choosing not to run on the wheel is like choosing to be happy" feels like a way less obvious interpretation than "choosing to run on the wheel is choosing to work".

oarsinsync 4y ago

> Boredom is a lot easier to solve than not having enough money...The reason people don't focus on their happiness IME is they weren't brought up to I think you hit the nail on the head but then reached an odd conclusion. The reason most people don’t prioritise their happiness is because they can’t afford to. Many people on this forum (myself, and by the sounds of things, you too) are massively financially privileged. Many of my friends are too, but many are also very much not. One of my best friends is staying in a relationship she’s unhappy in, because she can’t afford rent otherwise. It’s a shocking reminder for me how lucky I am.

martopix 4y ago
This is very well said, but even if you limit the scope to people who can afford it, many really struggle to let go. Including me. I have a good salary and savings and I keep saying to myself that there's nothing preventing me from having a cozy little life and stop worrying. And yet for years I kept pushing in my career in a way that didn't really make me happy, and I still struggle to let go.
- wnolens 4y ago
  I resonate with this. I'm not 100% FI, can't simply coast from here.. but I could make it work with almost any salary given my savings and lifestyle. Yet I still interview for better paying gigs, and generally turn up the heat on a career I don't love. My answer to "why do I do that" is difficult to give..
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - borroka 4y ago
    It is difficult to answer to that question, and I do not know your specific case, your psychological make-up, your memories, your history and the way you see yourself. However, although I do not know you, I have already listed some possible, if not likely, explanations. Giving up something at which one is obviously good, for which one is recognized, and which could be the core, or if not the core, a substantial part of one's identity, is challenging. One would have to create another identity, be comfortable saying "I'm not working" when others might think there is something fishy going on, whispering to each other "I don't know what's the matter with her, she doesn't seem to work." Not getting money when there is money to be had is seen as a serious sin in certain societies in which sweat, pain, and labor are seen as virtuous and relaxing, and doing something for the sake of doing it is the occupation of the lazy and of those with noble origins. My solution has been to have no external identity, in the sense that what I am is what I can do, but not what I do. For some people I am a sportsperson, for others an aspiring writer, for another group a software engineer. To myself, I am just myself.

metacritic12 4y ago

Absolutely. There are some billionaires (Zuckerberg, like him or hate him) who seem like they're having the time of their lives in the chase. Perhaps it's just people who don't enjoy their work, that are projecting themselves onto the working rich. Once you start with a faulty axiom (working intensely isn't fun), you start getting twisted conclusions (oh it must be psychological trauma, or those people just aren't reflective). The OP seems to know the happiness literature well. He cites the studies showing emotional affect doesn't go up with money, but life satisfaction does. This seems to clearly suggest more money is >= less money. But his conclusion is literally the opposite to fit his essay's narrative: that if you make it rich, you'll just be sad and bored. This is not what empirically happens.

borroka 4y ago
The statement "if you get rich, you will just be sad and bored" is one of the most obvious psychological operations by the rich and wealthy I have read about. It goes hand in hand with "money doesn't buy happiness" or "there is dignity in hard work (that leads to nothing, like moving boxes from here to there)." I am earning 10 times what I was earning before -- I was living decently earlier anyway -- and my life is considerably better, with broader and deeper horizons, more creative and purposeful. I can travel wherever I want, I can help others when I can, eat the food I want. I don't go on a spending spree, I don't have a big car, fancy watches or other material possessions that can be associated with "having made it." But my life has improved a great deal. And if I had more money, my life would have even greater potential, aspirations and achievements. One might say, "But if a loved one were to die, your money would not help." Perhaps. But how would a lack of money help?
- UncleMeat 4y ago
  Yep. You don't want to be rich, says the rich man who benefits by you being poor.

snapplebobapple 4y ago

Perhaps they weren't brought up to because when you focus on individual happiness too much society collapses? Maybe right now we are living in the ashes of the civilizations that,worked and are in the process of collapsing them by switching to individual happiness as our value metric?