Not the OP, but I can answer some of your questions. I made enough about 15 years ago to never have to work again. It didn't take long to learn the following lessons:
1. Not working gets boring fast. In less than six months I was casting about for something to do. I still work, not because I have to, but because it gives me a reason to get up in the morning. It's not working that sucks, it's having to work that sucks.
2. You can get used to anything, and hardly anything is as nice in reality as it is in your imagination. The trappings commonly associated with money -- houses, cars, private jets -- the charm wears off shockingly quickly and it starts to feel like a burden and a PITA. The houses all need to be furnished and maintained. The cars get old and need to be maintained. Even private jet travel is not all it's cracked up to be. Today we have one house, we drive old, boring, but incredibly reliable Japanese cars, and we fly commercial (though I have to admit that being able to go business class is awfully nice).
Money is just a lever. If you focus all your mental energy into acquiring the leverage without ever giving any thought to where you want to pry, you can end up badly lost.
> In less than six months I was casting about for something to do. I still work, not because I have to, but because it gives me a reason to get up in the morning.
Damn. I read the same thing from a lot of people on HN over the years and I'm envious.
I think I could easily and happily just not work for the rest of my life (in my 30s). I did exactly that for more than a year, living off my savings after being laid off. It was fantastic.
For six more months after that, I worked a couple of hours a week contracting, as the savings started to dry up. But I wasn't even close to wanting to work again. Maybe it would happen in 3-5 years? Who knows, but I certainly wouldn't want to do it full time. Which is where I'm back at, currently (working as a software engineer).
Martial arts, strength training, social dancing (I also gave lessons occasionally), reading fiction, going out to concerts/pubs, dates with my GF, video games, watching tv shows/youtube, hacker news.
Daytime coffee dates with friends - if both don't have to work those can easily stretch to 2-3 enjoyable hours. Lot of sleeping (9 hours/day, sometimes more). Weekend hiking trips - much better if you don't have to wake up for work on Friday and Monday.
Travel would have been great, but I didn't want to overspend since I didn't have any income. If all of that got boring I would have tried to join an amateur band (used to play guitar long time ago).
I guess I'm just describing a student life without the classes, lol.
That's one big problem right there. Everyone I know works. I don't know if this is because they all have to, or because, like me, they choose to. All I know is that they all do. (Actually, that's not quite true. I know one couple who is retired. But I don't know anyone my age (mid-fifties) who doesn't work.
One thing I do is take jobs with flexible schedules, so mostly consulting gigs nowadays. If I want to take a Monday off, I just do it. But I find that if I'm out of the loop for too long, I want back in. I find it tremendously valuable to have someone counting on me to deliver something precisely so I dont spend all day watching YouTube, which I could very easily do. But when I do that, I feel useless, and I don't like feeling useless.
But that's just me, I guess.
One other thing that makes it work for me (no pun intended): I don't have kids. If I did, I would probably be focusing a lot more energy on them.
> Money is just a lever. If you focus all your mental energy into acquiring the leverage without ever giving any thought to where you want to pry, you can end up badly lost.
> Money is just a lever. If you focus all your mental energy into acquiring the leverage without ever giving any thought to where you want to pry, you can end up badly lost.
Agreed. In other words, money is just a linguistic tool for communicating value. So, what do you say with how you use (or don't use) this tool?
How do you express your core beliefs, convictions, or values with toul use of money? What are you trying to do ("pry") with this tool?
1. Not working gets boring fast. In less than six months I was casting about for something to do. I still work, not because I have to, but because it gives me a reason to get up in the morning. It's not working that sucks, it's having to work that sucks.
2. You can get used to anything, and hardly anything is as nice in reality as it is in your imagination. The trappings commonly associated with money -- houses, cars, private jets -- the charm wears off shockingly quickly and it starts to feel like a burden and a PITA. The houses all need to be furnished and maintained. The cars get old and need to be maintained. Even private jet travel is not all it's cracked up to be. Today we have one house, we drive old, boring, but incredibly reliable Japanese cars, and we fly commercial (though I have to admit that being able to go business class is awfully nice).
Money is just a lever. If you focus all your mental energy into acquiring the leverage without ever giving any thought to where you want to pry, you can end up badly lost.