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Comment by jimmyvalmer | Hacker News Reader

It sucks to be frank. It wasn't quite my choice to take an early retirement. Despite what the pundits say, you are your job.

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Please don’t listen to this. These are the words of someone who allowed work to destroy the part of themselves that had their own hopes and dreams. Only a shell that could take directions was left.

Do you know this person? Because I actually love my job, and I feel like if I retired right now it would suck. I would definitely be bored.

This is mind boggling. Bored? You have all your free time to literally do anything you want. You can explore the outdoors. You can learn ANYTHING you want. You could get to know more of the worlds 6 billion people and their cultures. Volunteer, start a new hobby, spend more time with family and friends, work on personal growth, exercise... you have Stockholm syndrome, snap out of it.

Yeah that all sounds nice until you start to budget it. No way I could keep myself busy with the money I have. I guess this question really depends on if you have the financial means to retire _and keep yourself entertained for the rest of your life_. I don't.

> you have Stockholm syndrome, snap out of it

Very rude.

Yeah lol, some people like the structure, other people don't.

Not the person you're replying to, and not retired, but I can offer some perspective as someone that does indeed like the job.

If I retired I'd be able to learn anything I want - but If I wanted to tackle the challenges I have fun tackling, state-of-the-art and involving some nifty constraints and difficulties... I'd need whole teams around me, and a large infrastructure comparable to a multinational company.

That's what I get now - working. If I retired, I could only find it, I think, by getting the same job.

If I'm already working there, doing the stuff that I find fun, in a schedule that fits me and keeps me healthy and safe, and already relatively financially secure - to the point where I don't have to bother with focusing on corporate ladder or anything like that - what do I gain by retiring? At least on this aspect (there is obviously a tradeoff)

Not to mention I get to do some empowered volunteering from within the company itself. It helps that I actually have respect for the leadership, up to the CEO, as actual human beings. Not reverence - respect. Specially looking at some other companies out there.

I have a whole other perspective. But toss me into a meatgrinder job and I agree with you immediately.

Finally, I hope you see how your comment on Stockholm syndrome and snapping out of it was mean and ignorant towards the parent poster

Your comment describes my perspective almost to a T. I used to put a lot of stock in the idea of retiring early and then being free to do whatever I wanted, but what I want is to build interesting things as a team, i.e., exactly what I have always done.

I think many people are trapped by this dream of attaining financial freedom so they can escape work, but in a way that is a cynical take because it presumes that if you are getting paid to do something then it must be something bad that you wouldn't do otherwise.

Such a mindset is unfortunate because harbouring escapist fantasies is a really good way to undermine one's ability to find the joy in what they "have" to do. I spent over a decade not realising that I wasn't suffering from work, but from my hangups about work.

My advice to those who hate not only their job but any conceivable job, and who nonetheless have a job, is to get as good an understanding about why that is as possible. Reflect on it. Try moving around and changing your environment. Try different jobs. Try jobs that have one redeeming thing about them and seem awful in other ways.

The goal isn't to find the perfect job, i.e., the one that fits all your preconceived notions of what you want out of life, but rather to develop an understanding of what your assumptions are and where they come from. It is a useful mindset to be open-minded about what you really want and how you might get that.

Except family and friends could become resentful of you, the 6 billion people may have no time for you, and you could end up alone and irrelevant.

Enter association with other people and assume obligations and responsibilities? That's not too different from having a job or a career.

What kind of friends and family would become resentful?

The kind that has to keep working 5 days a week while you don't certainly could. Not saying they would, but it is a real possibility.

Not everyone is wired the same way. Yes it is nice to go and explore the outdoors (no one can disagree with that usually). But you cannot look down on someone because they choose to do otherwise. The point is that people should do what THEY want to do if they have the freedom to choose.

> the worlds 6 billion people

You should update your world facts database, we’ve been on the 7 billion revision for over a decade, and are about to tick over again. Currently at 7.898B humans alive.

By my observation people who have not experienced extended periods of free time are the ones who have this reaction, and the people that have actually experienced it are the ones saying it's easy to become bored or even depressed. I think it's just one of those things that's hard to imagine until you actually experience it.

I disagree. I've worked taken two extended periods off of work (6 months and 18+ months). I was busy most of the time because I have a life outside of work.

I'm sure there are some people that can keep themselves happily busy, but I've seen these kinds of threads about early retirement come up now and then in different places and always its the same: people who have not had a lot of free time incredulous or even seemingly offended that anyone would be happier working, and then many accounts of people that actually retired early saying it made them bored or depressed.

Alternatively, I've taken a year+ off multiple times in my life for "funemployement" and I was quite antsy and bored and restless but also lacked motivation to do much. I think it depends on the person.

I enjoy coding quite a lot, but I have enough other hobbies and interests, so if I didn't code ever again, I'd just focus more on other things that I enjoy.

I can see this for some jobs. Retire from the army and suddenly you are not jumping out of planes anymore, but programming? Nothing is stopping you from doing that post retirement, and you get to work on whatever you want.

But there's a difference between working on a product that impacts millions of people, versus noodling on a github project with zero followers.

Sure there is. When millions of people use your software you have to consider what those millions want. I guess it depends on what you enjoy about software development. For me I enjoy the craft itself and only let users in because I have bills to pay. My best work is stuff nobody will ever use or care about. It's like being a pop artist VS a relatively unknown experimental jazz musician.

Many finds value in doing stuff other people wants. Work is the most efficient way to do that, you write something and now millions of people can use it. When you write your own pet project nobody cares about it is depressing in comparison.

Of course you can care about other things, but if you care about this thing then work is the easiest way to fill that fix.

A job being your identity is a health challenge to be worked through with a therapist. Enjoy your job, for sure, but you make it your identity is to create expectations that cannot be met when unavoidable life transitions occur. A job is what you do, not who you are.

https://hbr.org/2019/12/what-happens-when-your-career-become...

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/wealth/earn/why-your-id...

https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2021/10/05/career-job-work-i...

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/06/style/work-life-balance-t...

https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2021/09/self-obje...

If I go spend 40 to 80 hours kn something for the majority of my life, shouldn't it be an important part of my identity.

If done in a healthy way, where it contributes to but is not the entirety of your identity, yes. It's a complex topic with a lot of nuance I can't boil down into a single comment.

Likewise! Ideally I'd work my job 4 days a week, but if I had to choose between 40 hours or 0 hours, I would choose 40

Actually you are what you do. People can quit their job anytime they want to; most just lack the courage and fortitude to attempt living without a solid income and utilize all manner of emotionally based arguments to make them think this is not the true reason they do just that.

Some people simply don't have a choice of whether to work or not... The difference is between being home and being homeless.

A lot of the posts in here are based on a singular view and it worries me.

Only some of us are very fortunate to be in a position where we can simply quit our job or pivot to a new way of life, but the majority of people in the world cannot do that and survive well. We should never forget the need to be able to consider walking in the shoes of others.

> you are your job

I hope you don’t take it personally, because it’s not intended as such, but this is sad.

I think there is a lot of truth to it. I would guess for the majority of people here, they deeply identify as tech workers and it is a huge part of their being. Hopefully it isn't everyone's entire life though.

Different people are different.

Being laid off and not finding new work so you’re forced to retire which is the opposite of choosing to retire early. And it’s sad, I hope that doesn’t happen to me.

> you are your job

I'm sorry to say this, but this is one of the saddest things a person can say in my opinion. You can definitely become your job, but I can't see myself ever wanting something like that.

A teacher impressed on me at a formative age that I wasn't likeable enough that people would ever respect me unless I did good work. I'm definitely reliant on my work (though no particular job) as a core part of my identity, but it's a mutually beneficial relationship overall. Tough love but insightful/fair advice in retrospect.

I have a quote that I put in my office in a prominent place. It says "Work done in the spirit of service is the highest form of worship." I really believe that and try to make my work a force of good. I feel too much work is a bad thing, but too little unfulfilling work is also not good.

Some people feel that if they were sufficiently rich, they will never work. I think one source of this view are the health effects of the sedentary lifestyle associated with tech, and I respect people who say that. It's all to common for people to be overworked in tech, so I understand people who want to exit for that reason too.

Still others, don't really enjoy work at all and would exit the workforce if given the opportunity. I respect that view too but it's not for me.

Because even if I had unlimited financial; resources I NEED to still work. I believe work, especially the kind that you feel is helping people and results in deep concentration called flow is beneficial for my mental health.

If I stopped working and entered a perma-vacation, I would go out of my mind. There are only so many golf courses, and so many days you can wake up late, before I would be bored out of my mind. When I go on vacation, I enjoy it and need it. But after about a week, I start to get bored and to miss work. I need a challenge.

There is a nice documentary called Born Rich by Jamie Johnson (one of the heirs to the Johnson & Johnson empire's wealth) in which he films the sons and daughters of billionaires (it's on YouTube). What I found fascinating is the happiest ones seemed to be those that applied themselves by working or in one case applying themselves in academia all the way to a PhD.

Even if I stopped my current start-up, I think I would find myself spending a few months catching up on technologies I didn't have the chance to catch up on, and imagine I would just start a new start-up after that.

When you are caught in a job you don't much like, time flies, but you are time poor. But may have some money.

I have been out of work for a long while, and family uses up lots of time. But I have always suffered with balance, programming entirely consumes me, and I ebb and flow with it. I feel totally disconnected and disenchanted with it and have no money and lots of debt.

And have no job security or fallback. Given a good manager and the right position I could happily amble along and be a useful asset.

But I am very disillusioned with web work and the industry. And I think web programming is a tremendously wasteful brain drain.

However if I had money and time, my perspective would be totally different!

Here are some things I am counting down the days til I have the free time to go deep on:

Martial Arts Music Cooking

Here are some things I would love to learn more about

World History Science Gardening Sailing Camping + foraging

Here are some places I've yet to see:

Antarctica, Machu Picchu, Angkor Wat, Tibet, The Pyramids

Not to mention spending more quality time with my friends and family.

Enjoying more of my parents' finite years together

Spending time nurturing my children.

I am not my job. My job serves me - it brings me closer to my goals. When that is not true, it's time for a new job.

Not here, never was and never will be. Its just a job regardless how creative it can be, life is about myriad other things, cool, great, actually important.

But to each their own, my perspective is that I don't want to have work-related regrets (ideally no regrets at all) when dying, and me being my job would definitely be #1 or #2 on such a list.

I would change it to "you are what you can", which expands possibilities up to the sky (with paragliding, sky is included)

> you are your job.

All i can read this as is “Brooks Was Here”

Out of curiosity why don't you go back? I did and am enjoying work on the new terms that the "cash out" allows me.

I have plenty of avocation runway to explore.

Hoping that the global economy is past the hangover by the end of the decade.

You are allowed to work still...

What were the circumstances?

I was fired, but you know how HR will gussy it up with cringey language like "mutual agreement" and what not.

Did you cash out early or were you fired?

Good question. I was fired, so I guess my case doesn't apply to OP. I also had enough in the bank that I don't need to follow orders from someone who's never made a mix tape, which is what would happen if I tried to rejoin the workforce.

I know, first-world problems.

Right, and can you not just get another job if you want to continue working?

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