Many people nowadays see retirement, especially early retirement, as a means towards whatever goal they have in life. You can focus on whatever you like without worrying about your financial stability.
My point was that this isn't the only goal people have. Just not being willing to waste too much time in traffic (while waiting for retirement) could also be the reason one prefers scheduling their trips to the shops.
if you're a worker, then mostly yes. Ideally, self-fulfilling goals that require those extra 40-60 hours you're giving to a company then can be diverted. Not everyone can work at ChangeTheWorld corp for their day job.
Part of it is that, in general, there aren't great options to spend 10 or 20 hours/week--or, really, 700 or so hours a year doing interesting work for someone else on your schedule getting paid at full-time professional salary levels. You're not available when needed. You're not keeping current probably. Even if I could do some part-time consulting on what I currently work on, I'd become much less interesting to hire pretty quickly.
It is if work sucks. Not all of us are lucky enough to love what we do.
I can't fucking wait to retire, and spend time doing what I actually want to instead of useless work.
It can simply mean being able to work on your own terms. Being able to walk away from undesirable situations, even if you still enjoy working.