I may catch some serious blowback for this but bear with me. The ramblings of a person on vacation who hurt his back on day 1 and is currently housebound, I also had a major death in my family.
I am 7 years out of school. I have always been somewhat frugal and enjoyed investing, however discovered FIRE/MMM/RE about 5 years ago and have been working diligently towards it ever since. I could pull of an ER Extreme at this point or a light FIRE in 2-3 years, a normal FIRE in 6-7 years. I have a spouse - we are 29 and have 1 newborn baby at home and plan on 1-2 more, spouse is 85% on board but likes work and spending a little more than I do such that the compromise was that I can retire whenever I want as long as it is what might be called FATFIRE but she will work as long as she wants (right now that number is 45-50). Yesterday as I was enjoying my first significant time off this year stuck in bed I had a bit of an epiphany.
On some level retiring very early is 10-15 years of watching your money and diverting a large portion of it for the future, and then (fingers crossed) another 50 years of watching your money and making sure there is enough for the future - well at some point the future runs out as we aren't here forever. I understand watching every penny and making choices between allocating resources is a fact of life for some people, but to me I'm starting to wonder whether this is all worth it if it is self imposed and doesn't have to be this way. We both work hard and are capable educated people, perhaps I don't need to impose the restrictions on us that I am as our finances are in good shape income and NW wise to say the least.
Another aspect of this comes from having a child now. I wanted for nothing in terms of sports, activities, experiences, clothing, toys my entire childhood. I feel like it is wrong of me to deny that to my own children while having enjoyed that myself. I am also weighing whether leaving them a larger legacy assuming they are deserving and capable of managing it is a worthy goal in it's own right compared to retiring earlier.
The last thing that has come as a recent discovery is that I need to be occupied 24/7 or I go stir crazy, I used to think I hated being busy but the truth is I guess that I don't, it is the time spent in labour that makes the free time most enjoyable. If I'm not volunteering 2-300 hours a year, or working in a demanding job, or on a side hustle I quickly become unhappy. I always have to be doing something productive on the house or yard, there always has to be purpose or some long-term aspect to it. I can never sit still or sit idle for more than half a day or I get bored.