Life, death, and retirement
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randomascii.wordpress.com
I always thought I'd contemplated life and death before this (I am not religious), but having had several weeks of genuinely not knowing if I only had a week to live, I think you only really do this fully in that kind of situation. Even if I am cured, my life and attitude will never be the same again.
Kind of a bummer.
At the time, I wasn’t ready to retire, but if it had happened 20 years later, it probably would have resulted in my retirement.
This was perhaps exacerbated by both my grandparents on mom's side also passing just a couple years prior back to back.
Among other things violently reshifted:
* Time is finite, grows more valuable as I age, and I do not have as much as I think I do. It is imperative I live now, not tomorrow.
* Time is money and money is time. Money in hand can be spent for others' time so I don't have to spend mine, and money can be replenished while my time cannot be. Money can also be borrowed, but I cannot borrow more time. It is imperative I live now, not tomorrow.
* Take nothing for granted. Social Security being the prime example; my mother waited until 65 to start taking it and so she barely enjoyed only 3 years of it. I refuse to repeat that, I am taking Social Security at 62 ASAP and screw anyone trying to tell me otherwise for any reason. It is imperative I live now, not tomorrow.
* People here today might not be here tomorrow, for any or no reason. The experience of spending time with them can only be had today. It is imperative I live now, not tomorrow.
* Small problems are not worth the time of day, it is fine to resolve them in the quickest and easiest way possible. It is imperative I live now, not tomorrow.
* Most of the goings-on in the world will come and go time and time again. If something comes up, it too shall pass and come up again in due time to pass again. It is imperative I live now, not tomorrow.
* When I'm finally gone, I'm gone. It is not worth the time of day today to care about what happens after, I will be dead and literally can't care or interject. It is imperative I live now, not tomorrow.
Acquiring expensive stuff is almost never deeply rewarding. There are exceptions of course such as good tools you might need for a hobby you enjoy but used tools are often a bargain or there are makerspaces or community workshops you might explore.
* I mostly stopped caring what others think about me.
Outside of a small handful of family and friends, peoples' opinions sincerely do not matter. I am wasting my already finite time thinking about them. That means I've stopped caring as much about looking good, speaking and acting cleanly, and so on in public. Did I disturb someone's peace of mind? Did I make someone happy? Sorry/you're welcome but I don't and can't care; I don't even know who they are and I have things to do.
Essentially, "gaze upon my field of damns and notice that it is barren".
* I am much more likely to purchase premium services and products now.
My time is finite, I do not wish to spend it on things I don't care about any more than I have to. This means I purchase a Windows license or a Macbook rather than deal with Linux config files; I hire a gardener every now and then to tend to my lawn; I take my car to the dealer/mechanic rather than fixing it myself; and so on.
I am saving my own time by spending my money, time I can then spend on things I truly care about.
I am lucky to be able to do that, of course, but many would can give an early inheritance don't.
Which is to say, huge +1 to reading "Die With Zero" or "Die Broke"
> "Die Broke" is similar. I read it ten years ago and it completely changed my attitude towards money.
One point "Die With Zero" makes within the first chapter or so is valuing experiences early on because experiences gain value over time, sort of like memory dividends. That is something I never thought about in that context but it goes a lot further than that too. An experience you have may shape you as a person. If you hoard your savings like a dragon until you're 60+ then you're missing out on decades of potential situations that can have a huge impact on your life.
Not financial advice, but I think it's worth thinking separately about when you stop working and when you take Social Security.
If your retirement assets are mostly in a 401k or similar then you need to work out how to spread those out without them running out before you're gone. Annuities are incredibly expensive so delaying Social Security actually seems like the best way to insure somewhat against running out of money if you happen to live longer, which would make me feel more comfortable about spending more in retirement.
If I had a traditional pension which pays you the same amount each year and wanted to stop working at 62 then taking Social Security early would be much more attractive.
But financial theory blew straight out the fucking window when I was going through her affairs.
One of the things I found from deep in her office was a notebook, in it were numbers figuring how much Social Security she would get if she took at <X> age all the way from age 62 to 70. She also extrapolated all the way to at least age 80; it was clear she intended on enjoying a long (semi-)retirement.
I also remembered at that point how mom approached us once when she was approaching 62 (and obviously in good health then) asking if she should wait or take Social Security ASAP. All of us (myself, my sister, my dad/her husband) all told her to take it ASAP; she ended up meeting halfway waiting to 65, but in hindsight we were clearly right to tell her to take ASAP.
Seeing that notebook and remembering that conversation still pains me greatly, because it's a whole lot of "could have" that got violently taken away from her due to literally sheer dumb bad luck. I absolutely refuse to repeat this if I can help it, so I'm taking Social Security ASAP at age 62.
Essentially I am placing far greater weight on today than tomorrow, because mom demonstrated to me that time is fleeting and I can't have enough of it.
For those inclined to do financial planning: Recently a colleague of mine retired. He mentioned that he plans on waiting for a while before he will start taking social security payments. His logic was that if he were to live longer, this decision would turn out to be a very good decision. This may not be a great decision in case he dies early, but then he won't be there to regret it. I liked the way he phrased it. Of course, his financial situation also allows him to live now without touching his social security. For those not in such good financial state, the decision might be lot more complex.
My job at the time gave me three days off before calling to ask me if I could come back to work, with my boss and HR on the line telling me that they also 'gave me the weekend' (since I was on-call when it happened). When I said that I needed more time away in order to deal with it, they fired me, then begged me to come back as a contractor a few months later.
I was so upset over the things that happened that I turned them down -- it wasn't what I wanted to do and it wasn't how I wanted to be treated: I'm much more selective about where I'm working at these days.
When my 5 month old daughter got her heart transplant, my manager at Salesforce essentially said, "be with your family, call us when things settle down." I'd only been there for 3 months. I took 3 weeks to get her home from the hospital, set up our new routine, and mentally reset. Didn't get a single work-related Slack, text, or call during that time.
Might have just been a great manager, but I think the overall culture was a big factor too. Not sure if that's ever really something you can pick up on during the hiring process, though.
I hope your daughter is doing better and is adapting to a normal life post-transplant.
I am sure that it is difficult for smaller or less profitable companies to "do the right thing" even if they want to
My oldest child committed suicide on New Year's Eve of 2021, aged 36. I reached out to my boss and HR saying I'd need some time away. HR responded by telling me not to report to work for two weeks. We'd talk at that point about whether I was ready to come back or not, with a possible extension if need be.
This is the way you do it.
Large, global retailer with their tech center in the Midwest. Most of the long term goals were presented from Italy, most of my coworkers were there because they had been there for 10-20 years and were zombies waiting on their package so that the company could move their jobs to Dallas.
Ironically enough, when I relocated to Dallas, one of their recruiters reached out. I think it was one of the few times that I’ve ever been unprofessional and was laughing as I hung up the phone to a recruiter.
I can only imagine the depth of your concern for your daughter’s future, and I wish there were more I could offer. For now, please accept my deepest sympathy and a warm, virtual embrace.
I'm sure that kind of lifestyle also exists outside of a religious context, but it was quite striking. I've never seen anything like it. It made me wonder what life used to be like a hundred years ago, and what we've lost, or given up.
I guess church is the prime example of a Third Place, which appear to be in short supply.
I share the desire for more social lifestyles - I think suburbanization is a huge driver of this - but want a secular form which doesn’t have the drawbacks many religions offer.
But now, at the end of this process, I am able to see better the cost of this separation. I don't regret it, and I am glad it was done, but it's clear that neither in nor out of a church is the 21st century adult made whole.
Somewhere there has to be a happy medium.
... I've often felt like it would have been much safer to either make a legal firm administrators of the fund or at least have multiple family members on it, so that they might keep tabs on each other and make it harder to just steal. I've actually spent a lot of time thinking about what went wrong and what might have been different. If that uncle hadn't died I would probably have spent that time fantasizing about ways to kill him, but, as it is ... I just don't get to retire.
I love my brother and have made peace with most of the consequences of what happened to him, because at a certain point you just have to accept the hand you're dealt and keep going. But the bitterness of what the world has done to us is still in me and I don't think it's ever going to leave.
tl;dr - definitely don't leave just one person, even family, with access to a disabled person's money
I’m sorry you had to live through that it’s truly horrible.
I wish there were better legal resources for the parents of disabled children to do this in the US. Like the original comment pointed out, the legal expenses of setting up a trust are steep, and if you're already fighting an uphill battle with medical costs it can be impractical. Or even totally out of reach.
> And crawling on the planet's face, > some insects called the human race.
What we don't do for ourselves, and for one another, isn't done. (Except in some cases, when it's done by fruiting flora externalizing gamete distribution costs.)
I will admit that I realized, too late to edit my original comment, that government welfare has also been a tremendous boon to members of my community with disabilities. A good social worker is worth their weight in gold. I happily pay taxes in order to keep my neighbors off the streets.
0. Richard O'Brien, The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Oof, this is obvious in retrospect, and I regret it. Unfortunately, there are some very useful rhetorical angles which do not translate to text, and pity is one of them.
Then don’t say it. Do us all a favor.
I have a feeling that the spectrum of responses to this comment—how varied and how intense many were—is mostly a function of cultural differences.
Ways of relating to such matters vary a lot with national/cultural/religious/family background. Unfortunately, on an internet forum we lack the usual implicit ways of recognizing such differences which help modulate this sort of conversation in real life.
Wow that sucks.
When my daughter was one and half years old, her mom passed away after one year of absolutely exhausting illness. I thought it was tough to be left a single father, but hey my daughter is perfectly healthy, so maybe I have it easy...
In New Zealand it is fantastic that we have social welfare as a last resort for the desperate, and sometimes it can be amazing. But too often it doesn't work out well.
Is there no-one you are close to that you could trust to look after money? It's a hefty burden but don't we usually have someone in our extended family or friend network that is trustworthy?
I certainly agree that I personally wouldn't want to trust most professionals in the business.
I have found friends that are less focused on work - sometimes because they have more control over their hours and sometimes because they are past retirement age and sometimes because they don't work for other reasons.
I'm looking forward to the next decade+ as maybe more of my peer group friends will choose (or be able to choose) to do less work hours/days.
We work to live, not live to work, and don't you let any overachieving founder mode startup bro sell you otherwise.
Sorry for the author's loss.
Then when you know what signs to look for, you see it a lot more among those 'very successful'.
There is one success for me - living a good life that one is happy to have lived when looking back old/dying. Good, sometimes hard moral choices instead of less moral shortcuts. A lot of people put themselves a lot of such baggage over years and from young happy folks they are grumpy envious older ones (there are many more reasons for such of course). Whatever such success means to you, all the power to you. For most of us, work achievement are pretty low in that list, so look for success elsewhere in life.
That's a reason to carefully choose the next target, but frankly sounds awesome to me.
I don't want to sit around and luxuriate recalling past successes that I'll never repeat. I'd much rather savor that for a short time and then set off for whatever is next in my short life.
Common, yes, but “most” is a great exaggeration in my experience.
I am surrounded by people who have or are achieving above a standard deviation from the mean (completely qualitative). They are just regular people who happen to thrive on their projects (work or personal).
I don’t know why or how our experiences can be so different.
I stayed longer than perhaps I might have because that person was young enough to learn and change. And they definitely learned and changed over time, but not the lessons I thought they should learn. This doesn't make the direction they took objectively wrong, but eventually I and all the engineering peers I valued bailed out.
It was frustrating because I remain convinced it didn't have to turn out the way that it did. But leaving was absolutely the right thing to do and I'm much happier now.
That's the curse of the optimist. You may be an optimist at heart.
That is an awesome way to put it.
We don't often hear about everyone's troubles and trauma. And seeing it written down is surely nothing compared to living through it. But there is a lot of it out there, whether we know about it or not, so when people go through it... I heartily approve of recognizing that life is more important than work, and knowing when to adjust that dial.
Unless you’re a founder or something like that you want to get that down to 40ish.
This forum is absurd. I don't need a cancer diagnosis to tell me I'm not living to complete OKRs and quarterly goals.
I'm a good employee and a dedicated worker but my goal since day one has been to do the least shitty job I can land, retire as fast as possible, and get on with the good parts of life. I've had the dial as far to life as possible forever.
But I'm working class, so I can't just retire when I realize the value of my life due to a medical emergency. Being able to do that is not a virtue that should be praised like this forum is doing, it is a gift that should be appreciated for the privilege that it is.
I only pray I can earn enough to turn my dial all the way to life, sometime before my body gives up on me
But after my wife died even that was not enough. The few meetings I had left were blocking activities I wanted to do, and the job which I had previously loved no longer gave me joy. So, because I could, I retired.
If my wife hadn't died I might have retired at exactly the same time - a 10-year work anniversary is a nice milestone. I almost felt pressured to delay retirement because making major irreversible life-changing decisions after a traumatic life event can be very risky. But I think it is the right choice.
At first it was complete shock. The next few days were complete confusion and sadness. However, I think one thing you learn pretty quickly is that acceptance is the only path forward, and that if you don't accept early, you will only get worse. I'm really grateful that I've had many, many years of therapy prior to this, so that I at least can identify the tools to bring me back out of the grief.
I would say that I'm somewhat stable now. I don't necessarily fear what might happen in the future, although grim. Have my feelings changed? Not necessarily, but they don't affect me in the same way they used to. I let them be there, however I do not attempt to push them away or let them consume me. A few days prior I would struggle to wake up in the morning, however after going through therapy I can usually wake up early.
If anyone is struggling, I would recommend a book called "The Happiness Trap" it's been instrumental in getting my mind back on track.
The year of dealing with my kid's mom's cancer was by far the worst time in my life. I quit my career to focus on taking care of the two of them, and it was still impossible to meet the needs of both of them.
Hang in there!
I had Bruce as a teacher in one of our early CS classes at college, he showed us all sorts of black-magic performance tricks (at least as it appeared to us at the time) and that curiosity in wanting to understand the how/why played a large part in where I am today.
I don't know if it's any consolation but I know he had an outsized impact on a number of us back then.
I posted in a comment in this thread, but I changed 3 jobs in 4 years (a mix of FAANG and startups) and each one has been more miserable than the previous, so I can definitely relate with the previous poster.
So I am wondering what kind of “normal job” people have that is so good that they’d do it for free.
(I work for a small local business in Eastern Europe, ten(ish) people, we don't earn much, but get a lot of freedom and the atmosphere at work is very nice)
Perhaps I am too burned out, but I couldn’t imagine feeling happy working with a team, an manager and hard problems.
Probably my “happy” job would consist in full agency with no managers, no peers to veto or judge or comment or compete on/with my work, extremely low intellectual requirements, part-time time commitment at best, and wages good enough to still make it objectively worth my time compared to my portfolio (shared a lot more context in another comment on this thread).
I understand all this might be a tad unrealistic, so just venting.
I’m much younger (late 20s), don’t have too many worries in life as my parents, albeit older, still alive, my siblings are fine, friends are okay, don’t have that many financial troubles either at this point.
That being said, a couple of years ago I got a text about a high school friend of mine passing away after years of fighting cancer. It was one of the weirdest emotions I’ve ever felt in my life, and I couldn’t (still can’t) understand why. I’ve seen my grandparents passing away in front of me, I’ve been to funerals, yet this one hit like a brick. At that point, it would’ve been about 10 years since I’ve talked to that friend of mine, maybe just exchanging some happy birthday messages from time to time. But we were fairly close in middle school, and later in high school as well, just the life drifted us apart, living in different cities and etc. Yet I remember the moment I read the text how he passed away. I remember being on a plane, and my entire mind being completely clouded for a week afterwards.
It’s like a sudden realization of how life can be very short for some of us, and you can lose people out of nowhere. I understand I’ve been lucky enough to never experience it until that point of my life, but it really sucked. And it just sucks knowing how it’ll happen more and more, or might even happen to me.
Anyways, it’s been about 2 years now, and I’ve lost all of my ambitions wrt my career. Took about 6 months off as well, which made me realize how small and fun the world is. I know for a fact I won’t be able to enjoy it as much in 30 years. But unfortunately I’m not at the point where I can do whatever I want yet.
Until then, every work day is just a repeat of things I don’t care about, followed by 10-20km walks to feel something. I wish it wasn’t the case, because I consider myself slightly above average in terms of skills and getting things done. Every morning I wake up thinking if I found just one thing that I could throw my life or at least a couple years at, I would do a decent job. But it’s hard to convince myself that anything matters. Then I remember how people that I hold dear to myself might be gone as well, and it becomes another day of spiralling.
Anyways, sorry for Sunday morning trauma dumping, but reading the OP’s story made me reflect on myself for a minute. Thank you.
I really envy people who lucked out in tech and can simply decide to retire like this. I guess I would say to the author (and others here in the comment section who somehow have $5M liquid saved up): "Turn your work/life dial over to life and move on as you are planning, but please be grateful and thankful that you ended up with such outlier financial results that allow you to do so." I think it's good for people who have these kinds of options to take a step back, reflect, and recognize how lucky they are.
Like most, I know I will probably be having to work until something disables me and prevents me from working, regardless of what tragedies life decides to throw at me.
https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-si...
Similar formula behind other get-wealthy motivational writers: Sell lots of books to people who gobble up get-wealthy motivational books, and collect royalties for life.
MMM is Personal Finance Porn: A story of one guy's very lucky and privileged life path, not generalizable to everyone else's situation even though it's sold as that.
[1] using a very flexible definition of "no"
You have to be willing to curtail your consumption, which gives a double effect (lets you save and invest more and you need less from those investments).
Not everyone wants to do that, but that means they won’t retire early.
I'm jealous ofc :) gz
And old age isn’t needed to figure this out. Even middle age will do. When I reflect on my life, I almost never think about past work.
(Yet, I remain mostly working.)
I've retired early and gone back to work voluntarily. I find the first 10 to 30 hours per week are good for me, and I genuinely enjoy employing people and working on projects with them. Not every week is exhilarating. Lots of weeks are dogshit and make me feel like going back to 100% life again. But over time, I feel more fulfilled when I try to contribute through work. I will surely reconsider that position when I become the Buddha, but likely not sooner if I keep my health and stay childless.
(do go part-time as soon as you can, it's great)
What you cherish on your death bed is often enabled by plain old hard work. You may not love the work, but for most of it is the path to those happy death bed memories().
Skip the work, and for most of us it will be a short, miserable life scrabbling for food and shelter.
() The big asterisk of course is tech salaries are completely out of whack with effort and complexity. There are a lot of us out here who get enormous salaries for doing comparatively little in the grand scheme of things. These lucky folks are skewing the narrative for the rest of the world.
For me, I will always cherish memories of vacations, my son’s first varsity touch down, my daughter’s vocal solo for a Christmas show, hanging out with friends in the woods with little more than tents, firewood and beer. I will also be quite honest that it’s been enabled by a lot of luck at work and the incredibly high salary I earn in software - which is less than half of the FAANG salaries I see mentioned here.
Life isn’t about living in the now. Or in the tomorrow. Or ignoring the long term, or short term, or whatever term.
Life for most of us is finding balance that works in our situation,
Nobody with sufficient passive income to satisfy their desired quality of life works longer than they have to.
In terms of prestige, I would float this thought: Can you name the CFO of Home Depot (or, another major company of your choice)?
I can't and I loved Home Depot. That CFO has C-suite privileges and prestige beyond what most will achieve, but they still aren't known even to people who like their product.
Also, stop worrying about prestige because no one else really cares. We don't. We don't care if you drive a Mercedes-Benz or live in a tawny neighborhood. We have our own stuff to deal with, just like you.
In fact, you'll probably get the worst side of people of your looking for clout. That's when folks will try to take it away by any means necessary. Be nice to yourself face while screwing you in the rear.
Worry more about what you love, not what everyone thinks.
Or hopefully he finds anything at all that helps. I lost my mother just a little over a year ago and it was (is) hard. In addition to the pain of loss though losing your spouse has to be even more disruptive to moving forward with your life.
Therefore I can't compare the grief of losing a parent to that of losing a spouse, and even when my parents do die (they are both in their eighties) it won't be the same because it will, to some extent, feel like the "right" time.
Losing a spouse is definitely disruptive as well and I have had to learn a lot of new skills, but they were probably overdue anyway. That part has been challenging, but quite manageable in comparison to the loss part.
I'd like to have more cash before retiring, but it'd be ok with a bit of restraint. It's mostly up to finding a good lifestyle.
Thing is, I still enjoy 'tech;' the activity of programming, writing tests, designing things (even building workstations), constant learning, and the larger potential it brings to more than technical people, tied in with the sometimes distant idea that a more participatory world can be fairer and more peaceful.
I wonder if an engaging hobby will appear that combines elements of free software, wikipedia, non-dominating personal perspective, and problem solving. People like solving puzzles, maybe we can help solve other people's puzzles too.
I'm surprised it hasn't happened so far, but contributory culture has been abducted so many times, and the intentionally free/open world hasn't been very good at course correction. Which isn't surprising considering other powerful interests, including professionalization and the way "startups" took over with their compartmentalize and cash-out energy, the tech giants, and now of course AI (which could be part of a helpful system). "Sensemaking" was a thing for a while, but it's not really talked about anymore.
Sounds like he made exactly the correct choice. I support him in continuing to make correct choices. This is but the first of many.
I did it, myself, but not by choice. I was "frozen out" of the tech industry, after leaving a very long-term job.
It absolutely infuriated me, at first, but, in the aggregate, it has turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me. It also coincided with close family members having some health issues, so my being available has been beneficial.
In my case, I really enjoy programming and tech; just not when it is being ruined by terrible managers and coworkers. I was really starting to hate what I did, and having full control of my own process, made all the difference.
For one thing, it showed that I was usually right, in my personal philosophies, which were regularly disparaged by said managers. When given the chance to practice my own personal Process, things have been going very well, indeed.
So I get to work for free. It's a blast. I've gotten more accomplished, in the seven years, since I was pushed out, than I did, in the thirty preceding years.
In my case, I am involved in organizations that constantly surround me with people with whom I have very intimate relationships. Socializing isn't a problem; but I understand that it can be a real issue for retired people. This goes double, for ones that have the means to wall themselves off from others.
I do know a number of folks that preceded me, in retirement, after long, lucrative careers. Most, were dead within five years of retirement.
In my case, I feel that I'm just getting started.
I would say i'm about a decade or maybe a decade and half before i can freely retire...But, already i see signs of the possibility of being frozen out of tech. Its such a fearful thing, and even moreso at a latter age! I quite enjoy technology both in isolation but also connecting proper tech to solve human problems...But so often it feels that at my $dayjobs, it always feels like we are solving the wrong problems...like chasing whatever some senior leader added into their presentation...as in, a goal for them, but not always something that is sustainable for the org, substantially helpful to people, etc. Its clear to me that while i still have the enthusiasm of my 25 year old around tech and genuinely helping people wit tech, i am so much more cynical about corporate use of tech. Nowadays, i'm at the point where i am seriously considering leaving tech, and trying to get some other job...and then only having fun with tech on the side, such as contributing to open source projects, playing on my own home lab, volunteering with orgs on digital divide, etc. I figure those sort of "hobbies" or side projects can also help me transition whenever the time comes for me to retire, of if/when i get pushed out. Now, i just have to ensure my costs are down so i can weather any salary hits.
@ChrisMarshallNY Sorry that you got impacted by a freezing out...But glad to hear that you're getting started on a new phase of life for you, and hoping it keeps being positive for you! Cheers!!!
That’s the key.
I have always lived extremely humbly, and haven’t carried any personal debt, beyond a mortgage on a very small house, since 1995. I maxed out my savings, and deferred stuff I couldn’t afford.
I’m still doing that now, and my savings generate more than I spend (for now). I’m hoping to have the ability to help my family, after I pass. They'll need as much help as possible.
I won't go into detail, but it was made clear that "my kind" was not welcome.
Financially, you can retire. one less thing to add to the destruction.
They will define what “…doing social or creative work…” entails, likely contractually, and then you’re right back where you started.
I think, we need to rethink, where this basic income originates.
- Philanthropic individual billionaires?
- Mythical creatures.
- Philanthropic trillionaires (aka: large govts or corps)?
- Mythical creatures.
- Collective individuals (aka: you and me)?
- Now you’re on to something.
The story reminds me that busy people don't seek health care enough (not saying it would have changed anything in this case).
We wait until something is so bad that we can't work. But we really don't want to wait.
Roughly speaking, health care can prevent many, many things, but it's rare that it can solve something once it's so bad that it actually interferes with life or work. So the real efficacy of health care lies in prevention and early intervention.
It's natural to be prone to choosing the urgent over the important. That's why you should counter by encouraging those in your circle to take care, since you would never de-prioritize the important for your loved ones. So get them to do it, and do it for them.
Preventative care is mostly a matter of self-education (based on real sources), self-monitoring, and nurturing good active providers. It's not strongly limited by resources. It includes building trust within your biological family to share genetic risks and disease incidence. Knowledge and monitoring should increase your confidence and peace of mind (i.e., if you find it making you anxious, then it's existential anxiety directed at health, which should be otherwise addressed). And there may not be a "payback" because you may never know what problems you prevented; the only feedback would be relief from catching something early enough to do something about it. So it's not part of the reward system feedback loop; just do it on principle, based on the efficacy profile of health care with prevention and early detection.
Any advice for people who are not finding the courage to quit, despite probably having the financial means to do so?
I came from very humble origins and moved to Silicon Valley from another country and have a gained a fairly solid financial situation, by having accumulated $5.5M liquid with expenses of around $50k (no kids, no mortgage, just a loving girlfriend).
I am so unhappy with work. I have changed 3 employers over the past 4 years and I’ve been more and more depressed with each transition. I spend my life in a state of immense disappointment about having to work. I am not even passionate about software anymore, so it’s not only the corporate madness (meetings, offices, coworkers, bosses, pressure to perform, code reviewers, etc). My weekends are filled with anxiety about Mondays.
I haven’t quit yet because everyone is telling me not to: my parents, still living in another country, are telling me to milk it until I am 45 (38 now), the few close friends I have are telling me not to squander the opportunity to earn until I get to $10-$15M due to real estate/healthcare/lifestyle costs going up (especially if I revisit the decision not to have kids, which I don’t think I will), and even financial communities like bogleheads/fire subs are telling me it’s not time yet and that I need to accumulate more given my privileged position.
I’ve tried a couple therapist but it didn’t work for me.
I also do not have anything to retire to: no particular passions, or hobbies. I just dream of spending a life of slow breakfasts, hiking on Monday mornings to celebrate a new week, reading books, slow traveling, and spending more time close to my aging parents.
After reading several people describing their experience (even in this thread) as “once you taste the freedom of not working, you will never be able to go back”, I can totally identify myself in that, so I like to think that the decision of “just take a 3 months break” would become a much more serious one.
Your original comment especially about not enjoying things, not knowing what your hobbies are, etc, are indicating that you've just lost yourself a little bit. I was in very much the same place. It takes some time away from what occupies most of your thoughts/attention (work) to re-learn who you were and who you are now.
For me, I took 3 months away from work. For the first 2-3 weeks I basically did "nothing." And it was only after that initial period did I start to remember things I enjoyed to do and felt motivation to go do them. After that, the remainder of my sabbatical was spent finding every minute I could spend with friends and family that I could.
I came out of that sabbatical with a, still fuzzy but a bit clearer, understanding of what I wanted but I was still the same ambitious person I was before. Chances are, you would still be too. If you're going to do it, think of it less like a 3 month break and instead as giving yourself 3 months of room to think and experience and re-introduce yourself to yourself.
As an aside - if you're feeling and thinking these things, your partner likely notices too. I have no idea what your relationship is like but can guarantee that all this definitely has an affect on y'all and you won't see what it truly is without said room to think and contemplate.
That sounds like a lot to retire to if you ask me. And $5.5M seems like quite a lot to me. Probably especially if you move back to your home country or almost anywhere else in the world outside Silicon Valley.
Myself, I do have some hobbies but I'd probably go nuts without the structure of having a formal job. If I were you, I'd try and find work that I actually enjoy and find meaningful; you probably don't need to worry about money so much, but if you had a job that covered your expenses, you could let the principle you've already accumulated grow.
Thanks. That’s easier said than done.
A big reason why (but not the only one) work is so depressing is because, in every single job I had (consulting included), I ended up pretty quickly despising and being highly resentful of my managers, I just don’t like being told what to do, “being coached”, “given feedback”, “pressured”, and oh God those 1:1, I hated every single 1:1 I ever had throughout my career.
Naturally I always put up the right facade to allow me to perform, but good luck finding a job without a manager.
I realize this says more about me than my managers, but this is still the reality.
FWIW, when I’m not working or depressed about the thought of work, I’m actually a pretty happy person.
I am inclined to agree with your parents/friends, you still have a lot of human capital (read: your youth) to build financial capital with today so you can have an even more fulfilling life tomorrow when you no longer have all that human capital (read: old age).
This isn't to say you shouldn't life your life now, of course. I wrote in another comment here that living today and not tomorrow is imperative[1]. But to refuse to make money during your prime money making years is also folly, because that money today will save your time tomorrow.
You should be able to invest the money with the goal of beating inflation and grow your pile. There's people who retire with a lot less. There's tools to help, where you can play with the numbers, investment returns, inflation rates, etc.
It's difficult to predict the future. You might wish you had more money a couple of decades from now, or you might get hit by a bus next year and wish you had lived it up more when you had the chance. Eventually the stress of your current job is likely to affect your health. It takes a while to get over being burnt out.
The safest option might be to look at your money as a wonderful cushion, giving you options that others only dream of. You can find a different job that you like, even a lower paying job preserves a lot of your savings. You can take time off, maybe doing something along the way that looks good on your resume. You can work on and off. You can change careers. Maybe figure out what you'd want to do if money were not the object. You are way ahead of the game. The world is your oyster!
It can take a while to figure these things out. Best of luck!
I grew up in a family of entrepreneurs (extremely small scale brick-and-mortar solo businesses in my home country, barely making ends meet) and I clearly remember my father and uncles in my childhood being very proud about “not having to work for someone else”, probably something subconsciously stuck.
To be clear, those same people are the ones who are now telling me to absolutely not quit my corporate march due to my demonstrated earning power, and to toughen up and suppress my feelings of unhappiness for as long as this money train can continue. My mother is a bit more romantic and she’s telling me to set a deadline in my 40s, which is still way, way too far.
What is really stopping you from leaving the US and go back to your country? Is it your girlfriend? Is that it's hard to leave Silicon Valley and its tech-scene (i.e., FOMO)?
The money would probably be more than enough in your parents' country. And eventually, you could probably get bored and would find hobbies or passions to entertain yourself..
It’s probably too early for you to decide that you are done forever, but you could be if you want to.
You could take a break of 1-2 years and see how that goes. Call it a sabbatical on your resume if you want to go back to work after.
For this alone, I'd urge you to expand your horizons, maybe when you retire move out of SV or just spend time with people outside your circle.
Lastly: About therapy: One thing I tell people: If you believe in it, it will work. (Conversely: If you don't believe in it, then don't waste your time and money.) So, if you do believe that therapy can work for you, try a different therapist -- couples or single. Example: Choose a therapist with a different gender. It will help to open your eyes to a new way of thinking.
Thank you for your comment. It is missing a critical point.
I know that it’s likely I could get another job if I wanted to, after a year self-funded sabbatical (which, btw, wouldn’t be with my current employer, after having been with the company just a few months, remember the “3 companies in the past 4 years” part, I’ve really been on a wild job hopping ride caused by how much I hate working).
What I also know is that I have this strong inner feeling that, if I took one year off work, I would never, ever, want to go back to work, because working after experiencing such freedom would feel even more torturous than it is today. So, I see this strictly as a one-way only, and I would like for any commenter to treat this feeling at face value.
This is, in a way (modulo the entrepreneurship part, for which I don’t think I’m cut), similar to what my dad told me once: “in my early 30s, after I quit my job to embark in my solo entrepreneurship adventures, I knew that, no matter how bad it would get, I would never get another job, the feeling of being in control of your day was way too powerful once tasted”.
> I see this strictly as a one-way only, and I would like for any commenter to treat this feeling at face value.
At the risk of overstepping my bounds: I do think that you are underestimating how much a year away from work will rewire your brain. Even 10 days away from the office has a distinct effect upon mine. New possibilities will emerge once your brain is much less stressed for a long period.
Thank you for your kind message. So far, every single time I’ve taken a 1-2 week vacation, it’s been an extremely positive experience, I truly felt alive during the time off, and even my partner routinely comments how I am a brand new person on vacation.
But, coming back to work after such vacations has always been a gut wrenching experience and I felt much, much more depressed than normal for several weeks until reverting to the “baseline” depressed state, to the point where I even seriously considered not going on vacations anymore until I quit for good. For this reason I never related to people saying “a vacation recharges one person for new work challenges”. I can just speculate how the idea of coming back to work after one year off would feel.
But changes can't escape your circumstances, which you must suffer nonetheless. Make any change in priorities and you're still as beholden to your life's vicissitudes.
It's common with death to find sudden compassion for self and others, and a compassionate disposition may lead to remarkable changes of feelings about life and attenuate obsessive responses. This is not necessarily good.
All thinking about death misapprehends the finality of death for thought.
You can learn do what you want, but you can't conserve time. Life can't be optimized. Moreover, an efficient world would have prevented your existence in the first place.
But there are trails left by others to follow.
The time to make things right for yourself and others is always here and now. In any situation, there's a chance things can improve because you're here. And if you can't make things right here and now, maybe you can elsewhere later.
Going for treatment? Appreciate the work of those treating you.
Not going for treatment? Appreciate being of service to others.
Don't understand the importance of your work? You have something to work on.
Others don't understand where you're coming from? Be on lookout for others who need attention.
Pass on enjoyment.
——
Bob Dylan:
The man in me will do nearly any task And as for compensation, there's a little he would ask
It take a woman like you To get through to the man in me
Storm clouds are raging all around my door I think to myself I might not take it any more
Take a woman like your kind To find the man in me
But, oh, what a wonderful feeling Just to know that you are near It sets my a heart a-reeling From my toes up to my ears
The man in me will hide sometimes to keep from bein' seen But that's just because he doesn't wanna turn into some machine
It take a woman like you To get through to the man in me
I too was at Google. But for 7 years, not 10. And my employment terminated in April, not because of a life event like his.
But the feelings he expressed resonate with me. I stopped enjoying work and my performance tanked coinciding with a reorg and manager change.
I did not miss my job which just a couple years ago I actually enjoyed.
I wasn’t seriously thinking of leaving my job. Being pushed out forced me to evaluate what I do if that happened - which it did. And that evaluation is that I’m a lot happier and can reset what I want from life - it doesn’t have to be full on retirement.
I have always thought about life in the long go term. What legacy do I want to leave, how do I want to spend the last years, what do I want the late years to look like with my wife.
Sometimes it takes the outside world to force you into the next thing. Life does not discriminate but the best you can do is take a big step back and try to find a new lens to look at it through. There are many lenses.
but for most of the people you work with in tech, retirement will just be a fantasy
it is common for my coworkers to be forever-renters now, even those in their late forties and fifties...I don't see how you can stop working if you have to pay increasing rents over time
its crazy how having kids, owning a home, and retiring all became privilege flexes