Comment by mewpmewp2
2 months ago
I suppose it depends on a person. I am pretty sure the more money I have started to make throughout my life the happier I have become. Simply because of having more freedom over how I spend my time. I feel like there is almost infinite amount of things to do in this World, I just wish I was able to 24/7 do those things. I don't have enough to not work for rest of my life, but I have been able to buy my own apartment, house, which has given me a lot of confidence in my self and feelings of freedom. I started out with no connections or education though.
I am sure it can be different for everyone, people see the World differently.
All that sounds sadly familiar. Once you cross the threshold of not having to work for a living, the illusion fades away.
You are still you, your problems are still there, you are still bound to a slowly decaying body, there's no GAME OVER banner and credit roll proving that you have won the game of life. Because you haven't. Hah.
You can of course keep yourself entertained with all sorts of stupid stuff that doesn't actually matter. Or you can accept that there are still only a handful of things that bring people contentment, and you don't need to be financially independent to do any of them. I'm talking about bland obvious stuff like spending some time with loved ones (including pets and plants), going out for a walk in the park, etc. Unsurprisingly, a ton of retirees do just that. It's not because they are old and can't do anything else, it's because they have finally figured out what works.
And it's not like doing five times as much of that stuff is going to make you five times happier, either. Anybody with a full time job can carve out some quality time instead of arguing with strangers online.
It's also the case that having enough money not to work makes it very simple to engage in self destructive behaviour.
If you have a 9 to 5 then you're waking up at sunrise and going to bed some time after sunset. You're probably commuting, getting out in the world, chatting to people even if it's just the colleagues, Starbucks drive through, supermarket checkout clerk, that sort of thing.
If you have retirement level money and you're alone there is absolutely nothing stopping you from waking up at 2pm, sitting on your computer playing World of Warcraft ordering takeaways, not going out for a walk or seeing the sunlight, getting slightly more depressed each day in a spiral.
There's also nothing stopping you from going out drinking every day or every other of the week, shrugging off the hangover then hitting the next one. And so on and so forth.
People easily underestimate how much their sense of well-being is related to simple things like just going for a walk in the sunshine every now and then or eating properly.
I have had multiple different life routines. Healthy fit, alcoholic, depression and self pity, video games no life, productivity hacking self help guru following, career climbing, start up attempting. Considering having been through all of these and knowing how each of them feel, I would hope I have enough experience and urge to opt for the healthy fit as baseline. I think it is still much easier to go for it having no work stress in life.
Yeah, that all hits close to home.
I find that having a daily schedule and trying to stick to it helps. Also, going for small quality of life improvements, trying things out to see what works and what doesn't, such as a different pillow, or replacing some foods with alternatives.
Having free time forces you to deal with all the emotional baggage you have accumulated over the years and it's a bit much, too. I was obsessed with saving money so that my family wouldn't struggle if I became unable to work; as a result, I didn't process the reasons why I had that fear in the first place. My dad became severely disabled when I was in college and it was a very traumatic experience for my family.
Ouch, that hurt. And I'm not even financially independent!
I think having kids should help a lot. I'm spending around an hour every evening with mine and a few hours during weekends, but neither me nor they feel this is enough. I would also go skiing for 2 weeks every winter with my family and rent a cottage in the countryside for whole summer holidays, but I have neither money nor time to do it.
The irony of the situation is that by the time I earn the money my kids will grow up, leaving me a sad lonely man.
One reason why I truly hope I have enough financial independence by the time I have kids. But maybe you can become a good grandpa at some point?
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Like all things, financial independence means it's one of the things you can stop worrying about, and focus on what you think matters. It means you don't have other people telling you what you must do 8 hours of the day. Of course, some very very rich people have decided what they want to do is argue with strangers online. But that's their choice to make ;)
Decaying body might be one of the toughest arguments there, which unless we find a way to stop this, my solution would be to have kids and develop them instead of myself. Since I do like competitive sports and it is kind of hard to accept that at some point I am no longer going to be able to improve.
It may be the case that once I reach complete and comfortable financial independence it will not be all I expected it to be, but right now I don't see myself not appreciating the hell out of it, however I am sure plenty of people have thought they would be happy when reaching X goal and they either weren't or it was fleeting. I do have to say that so far I have come a long way from where I used to be from what I consider a hopeless position.
But there is a difference in my view whether you can walk in the park knowing that you don't have any potentially stressful responsibilities and problems coming up or you are walking in the park and excited about working on a hobby project of yours since you can 100 percent focus on that.
> my solution would be to have kids and develop them instead of myself
I never understood that kind of argument. Your kids will have decaying bodies just the same. You're only recreating what you're trying to escape, in somebody else.
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I think that is most people's experience but it only works up to a point. you will get diminishing returns the more money you have until, in some cases, maybe negative returns.
Probably diminishing returns, but sometimes I think there is also selection bias, with ultra rich getting there because of never ending satisfaction, so it is contingent on the type of the human. Satisified person would stop sooner while never satisfied would naturally become the richest.
> I just wish I was able to 24/7 do those things
Wait, you don't?
Do you have less than 24 hours a day to do things?
A lot of the things I do within those hours are spent on things I don't want to or like to do.
Then don't do them!