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Comment by adkadskhj | Hacker News Reader

I think it depends on who you are. I can't fathom not doing something. I want to retire, asap, though not FIRE-levels, but i know what i want to do. I want to do exactly what i do in my current off hours, which looks a lot like work. Because it is work. I want to work, when i retire. I just want to work on whatever i want to work on.

Which is the rub. Passionate people will be busy, all the time. Without it.. well, i can't even envision how to live.

I think parents need to help their children find hobbies. Find passions. Develop passions. You don't _have_ to be excellent at piano or whatever. I don't care what it is, be it games, wood working, farming, etc - but i feel like it is essential to the human experience.

But.. i've got an isolated view. So.. YMMV.

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This isn't an isolated view, but in my view, it does miss a lot.

Most people have an idea of what they would ideally do if given unlimited amounts of time. The reality is, in my experience, that most people cannot put the same level of work, focus, and dedication into their own projects that they can into the projects an employer pays them to work on.

For whatever reason, most people need the structure, constraint, judgment, or whatever that an external authority imposes on them. Having the skill and motivation is not enough to bring your highest work to your own purposes. There is a second discipline that involves self-accountability, which runs orthogonal to capacity for the work.

Who is advocating that most people should FIRE? It's an individual choice and we shouldn't be telling someone they can't do it because, well, "averages".

Nobody is saying "you can't do it." But "averages" is 100% a valid reason to consider why you shouldn't do something, particularly something unknown to most humans.

> I just want to work on whatever i want to work on.

This is exactly why I'm pursuing leanFIRE. Even if I hit the jackpot, I would still be toodling on personal software projects for the rest of my life. Not saying I'm any Michelangelo, but I would have to be trained not to write software. I'm just aiming to set my own priorities instead of working on things I'm not passionate about because I simply need the money.

I keep wondering if I shouldn't quit the day job and start a software shop, but even that sounds an awful lot like work where you trade one relentless taskmaster for another. I sure as shit don't want to have to worry about market share, I just want to make cool (to me) software.

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