Is early retirement the solution to all our problems?

[dodojojo]

ALL my problems?  No, but FIRE would be a solution to one current problem--it's being completely listless at work.  It's a job I should have left 2 or 3 years ago but it's by the far the highest paying job I've ever had.  The working conditions are also excellent.  It's really comfortable in many ways.  The negatives are substandard benefits and the fact that I'm absolutely disinterested in the actual work. 

[damnedbee]

People may like their profession or daily work, but it's everything that comes with it that I can't stand anymore. Endless pointless meetings, incompetent coworkers, office drama, paperwork, commutes. Sure, you can switch jobs, but that stuff follows no matter where you go.

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[gerardc]

People may like their profession or daily work, but it's everything that comes with it that I can't stand anymore. Endless pointless meetings, incompetent coworkers, office drama, paperwork, commutes. Sure, you can switch jobs, but that stuff follows no matter where you go.

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Well, if you quit to avoid office politics, you won't necessarily be able to work on the interesting stuff anymore. There are pros and cons to the job, and quitting will remove them both indiscriminately.

[Hargrove]

Early retirement is not the solution to any problem. That's the best way to look at it.

Early retirement doesn't solve your job problem. Your job is itself a solution to the problem of how you will not starve, of how you will not freeze and be rained on, of how to provide these things for your family or perhaps others you care about.

Early retirement is the Freedom to

As that, anyone pursuing early retirement as a solution to working is trying to be rid of a healthy and important part of life. All you really provide yourself by retiring early is the opportunity to finish the sentence, which means please, pursue early retirement in contemplation of what your freedom will be used to do.

Even if you choose a job with all its failings and all its merits, your choice to apply your freedom to it will change your time immensely. Happiness is not merely an absence of stress. Quitting your job won't make you happy, even if it's possible your job makes you miserable. Whatever you chase in retirement, let it challenge you to be the better version of yourself, whether it's connecting with people in 100 countries or building houses or reading at a nursing home or gardening or spending time with your children or grandchildren.

[bacchi]

Quitting your job won't make you happy, even if it's possible your job makes you miserable.

I may be an outlier among outliers but quitting the job did make me happy.

Dumping the 9-5 made me happy; dumping the 3 days/week made me happy; going to read-until-3-am-because-i-can made me happy.

[Hargrove]

I think what you did with your free time made you happy. That's kind of my point.

If quitting the job actually made you happy, it wouldn't seem silly to keep applying for jobs so you could keep quitting them.

[Paul der Krake]

I like my job just fine- it's the whole 35 hours a week 47 weeks per year on a very fixed schedule I have a problem with.

[bacchi]

I think what you did with your free time made you happy. That's kind of my point.

If quitting the job actually made you happy, it wouldn't seem silly to keep applying for jobs so you could keep quitting them.

Ah, true, but that's an odd point to make. You're right, though. It wasn't the quitting per se that made me happier. However, since the job enforced a combination of rigidity and obligation, quitting the job (and, to your point, not getting another) made me happier.

I think you're ascribing purpose to others who may not have purpose. I don't want to connect to others or build houses or garden or spend time with friends and families, specifically. Those are great but it's the rigidity that mattered. Quitting facilitated that.

This seems like a semantic discussion.

[Hargrove]

Ah, true, but that's an odd point to make. You're right, though. It wasn't the quitting per se that made me happier. However, since the job enforced a combination of rigidity and obligation, quitting the job (and, to your point, not getting another) made me happier.

I think you're ascribing purpose to others who may not have purpose. I don't want to connect to others or build houses or garden or spend time with friends and families, specifically. Those are great but it's the rigidity that mattered. Quitting facilitated that.

This seems like a semantic discussion.

It totally is. The value of it is pointing out to people who are unsure of where they are regarding retirement (early or not) how they might get a handle on it. You're in a good spot riding the wave of stress relief from not being forced into a rigid situation you don't like. That's awesome! It sounds like, for now, all you wanted to do was be free - you got that and sound happy with it. The OP's situation seems different. If retirement is the purpose for someone who needs to have a purpose, they could be suddenly out of road when they get there if they don't plan ahead.