There were a lot of things I did while working to cope, that I no longer need to do now that I'm retired. My life isn't stressful, so I don't need to veg or tune out.
This pretty well sums up my hopes/working theory of how I'll operate in RE vs while employed - right now instead I spend much of my time outside work sitting in a lump and wishing I had the energy to get up and do the things I love, because it takes me about three days away from the office to feel like a person again (and working an ordinary weekday schedule, that means it rarely happens.)
Intellectually I know the quoted above is likely for me. Most of my hobbies in the past have been productive & healthy. But emotionally, since my recent, work-depleted experiences are of spending most my free time in vicarious pursuits from a couch, I'm often very much afraid that that's all I'm running towards with my FI journey. I've lost touch with the skills of living, and it leaves me uncertain about what I might actually be capable of anymore.
The fact that my life is outwardly perceived by those around me as "successful," even when I confess the zombie-like state of my off-time, is horrifying (and tells me I need to add some different influences into my real-life community.)
And I'm personally tempted to say that the trouble assessing who we might become under other circumstances - the fear that we aren't strong enough to choose productivity freely - is proof we're living very much the wrong way in the present, because it certainly is true for me... but I also think that it's easy to assume others are very much like us, and I don't want to err too far in that direction. I am quite sure that Malkynn above is right in that first-generation Mustachians tend inherently to be the sort to execute autonomy with a high sense of personal agency - MMM's can-do-isms have tended to piss anyone else off by the comments section and they didn't make it to the forum, so those who've historically hung around here will not end up at risk of sitting passively in circumstances that dissatisfy them. It's just not in our nature. We're happy to be black sheep, and we don't want to be herded.
That said, the community's growing and thus going to be diversified. I don't want to slip into the fundamental attribution error of assuming everyone's behaviors are intrinsic rather than situational; if the future goes right, there will be plenty of FIRE-ees who won't fit the Mustachian mold of rebels with iron spines and no need of extrinsic reinforcement. A society where check-to-check shortsighted living isn't the norm is healthier, so I'd like FIRE to grow beyond a counterculture.
But BECAUSE financial independence is atypical, there aren't a lot of community efforts that go out of their way to be pleasant enough to be worth doing without remuneration - society's decided that if it's worthwhile, it should be paid, and that if it's paid, it needn't be pleasant (because someone will be desperate enough to do it anyway.) So I definitely see a gap there for people who aren't wired to be satisfied without community direction & accountability in their lives, but also neither feel good about "slacking", nor want to hang out with unthinking consumerist worker-bees to avoid it. If you thrive on external structure, but you want to step away from the working world that prizes money-for-stuff above all, what resources are out there for a productive, happy post-FIRE life?
K.
So simple fact: you cannot equate downtime during burnout with free time during retirement. That's not just apples and oranges, that's donkeys and calculators, it's so not the same thing.
I've been there, super successful and exhausted. I used to have 3 day weekends because I worked very, very long days. People would ask me what I did on my Fridays off and I would freely admit that I rarely left bed. People seemed to think this sounded reasonable or even desirable.
I now have 6 days off per week and not a single one of those days looks like my previous Fridays. That existence now feels so incredibly foreign to me.
Also, when I was overworked and being very very successful, lol, I never saw any opportunities other than work. Not only did I have no energy, but all of my work hours were, well, at work (or in bed on Fridays).
You have no idea how many opportunities are buzzing around you at all times when you don't have free work hours.
All I had to do was cut one more day from my schedule and then suddenly the world exploded with possibility. I was no longer over worked, so my two days off during the week weren't spent in bed, and I could do lunches, and meetings, etc.
Within a year and a half, I had 4 side hustles, was on the executive of an elite non profit, was writing articles for a national publication, etc, etc.
Because I wanted projects, every chance I got to speak to anyone was an opportunity to perhaps find a new project.
As for work only being worthwhile if it's paid, and paid work being miserable, well, my personal experience couldn't be further from that. Some of my projects are very well paid, some are very poorly paid, some are volunteer, some make a lot of money for others, and all of them are extremely interesting and deeply satisfying.
I'm on medical leave right now, well, sort of, I'm working one day a week, and my biggest challenge right now is trying to avoid getting sucked into too many amazing projects.
I'm writing a damn book for Christ's sake, which I've been trying to avoid for years, but my sister asked for help on a project and now we're writing a damn book together.
I'm doing it just because my sister is overloaded and this book is part of her workload, if I do this, I get to see her regularly, otherwise she'll sink into work and I won't see her until this project is done.
My sister is too fun, I can't say no to this.
So yeah, I'm writing a damn book. I actually love writing, it's just such a cliche in my family to write a book.
Also, now I'm the president of the elite non profit, I'm hosting a bunch of networking events, plus a series of lectures on burnout for medical professionals, plus helping a colleague broker a massive industry shaking deal, plus I've started a mentorship group for new grad medical professionals, plus I'm helping develop resources for a friend's women's shelter in Africa, plus I'm helping two small charities connect with major industry dollars, plus I'm helping another more established charity with their rebranding, plus I've been asked to join the executive of an even bigger non profit, plus a national agency wants me to start a podcast, plus friends are running several children's shelters in India and have asked me to come out and help, plus a family member would like me to join her in the volunteer work she's doing in the Arctic...
These are the small projects I'm letting myself consider. That doesn't even include the 3 major side hustles that I've put on hold, or the additional graduate degree I'm seriously considering in 2021.
The world is absolutely packed to the god damn rafters with really, really interesting, challenging, and satisfying work. You just can't see it if you don't think it's there.