Philosophy about RE, work, and happiness & Teddy Roosevelt

[forummm]

I came across this Teddy Roosevelt quote:

Among ourselves we differ in many qualities of body, head, and heart; we are unequally developed, mentally as well as physically. But each of us has the right to ask that he shall be protected from wrong-doing as he does his work and carries his burden through life. No man needs sympathy because he has to work, because he has a burden to carry. Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing; and this is a prize open to every man, for there can be no better worth doing than that done to keep in health and comfort and with reasonable advantages those immediately dependent upon the husband, the father, or the son. There is no room in our healthy American life for the mere idler, for the man or the woman whose object it is throughout life to shirk the duties which life ought to bring. Life can mean nothing worth meaning, unless its prime aim is the doing of duty, the achievement of results worth achieving.

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt

Now he was President at the time, and may have had various motivations for encouraging people to work and giving kudos to those who do. But I think that there is truth to the bolded sections--at least for many people.

I think one of the surprising paradoxes of FIRE, ERE, MMM, etc, is that people seem to keep working after being "retired". I don't know if it's because we are genetically predisposed to get satisfaction from work, because our society has programmed "work is virtue" or "your work is what you are" into us, or what. I see a few people say that they can't wait to FIRE so they can watch TV and pet their dog all day. But I see a lot of people who go back to work actual jobs, or talk about planning for a retirement job, do a lot of work even though it's not a "job" per se. I am naturally drawn towards being productive, and that can take a variety of forms. I'm feeling more and more as though I'll always be working on something--whether it pays or not.

Thoughts from the crowd?

This is all part of my personal thought process. I'm trying to decide whether to stick with what I'm doing now (don't enjoy it/don't hate it most days, but lets me save a lot due to LCOL and get to FIRE in the next several years) vs make a huge life change and do something I think I will be more interested in (but is risky and will significantly delay FIRE). If I'm expecting that I'll always work on something, does delaying FIRE make sense if I'm working on something I might like more (but will still have the other negative aspects of full time employment)?

[WildJager]

I whole heartedly agree.  But "work" back then on the whole had a different meaning than "work" now.  I can't wait to finish work so I can be MORE productive with my time.  I love my job when I'm out in the field doing things that matter.  I hate it when I'm sitting at a desk updating PowerPoint slides (unfortunately, that's most of the time).

When I'm on my own, I'll be able to dedicate all of my time to farming and hunting and building.  I don't watch much TV, but I read a lot, though even that can grow dull because I can't act on knowledge acquired (in the physical sense that I enjoy).  People are meant to be active and productive.  It makes us health and happy as a species.  Some of the votrial that critics to ER spout is based on the assumption that we as a community just want to retire so we can watch TV all day, which couldn't be further from the truth.

Forummm, as to your personal dilemma, that really can only be answered by you.  Weigh the costs and benefits.  If you're in a situation like me where your post fire objectives can't even be started until you retire, then grind it out.  If you can start doing some of what you love now, and work a better job in the process, then that's a win/win (assuming, as you are not, equal risk to eventually early retirement).

[oinkette]

There isn't an either/or.  It's not stay at a job or be idle on your ass all day in FIRE. If you go to the post-FIRE forums you'll see that. I don't HATE my job, but I don't love it enough to stay at.  I think the bold part of your quote explains why.  I provide a service, but it isn't life changing. A lot of my days are spent loafing (but that 20% where I work, I definitely earn my keep). I actually day dream about not being idle!

Work worth doing doesn't have to mean a job.

[The_path_less_taken]

Work worth doing doesn't have to mean a job.

Yep.

[Cycling Stache]

I came across this Teddy Roosevelt quote while at work reading quotes about work rather than working.

[regulator]

I worked long and hard and shoveled an awful lot of white collar shit for 20 years to get to the point of FI.  I am now what you could call Semi ERd.  I still work for pay, but on my terms and for the amount of time I wish to put into it.  The rest of my time is largely used in pursuits that are actually productive.  Striving for FI does not have to mean ER.  Only if that is what you want out of life.

[Hall11235]

I think that, regarding the paradox of "working" post FIRE, the situation goes something like this:
Post FIRE, we end up with a lot of time to pursue our passions. When we pursue these passions with all the time and dedication we think they deserve, you actually have to try to NOT achieve a level of proficiency where people would pay you to use that skill.

TR wrote about the "Strenuous Life" and believed that, when faced with two paths, one should choose the more difficult because it was the most rewarding. I think that Mustachians share this idea and trend with him (maybe it's because we are overwhelming INTJs).

To me, when we work towards FIRE, we are choosing the more difficult path. The obstacles are many, but, when we get there the reward is so much more than the standard "work til 65, then die."

Forummm:
As to your dilemma, a few questions (rhetorical and introspective):
Would this change be something that brought your net happiness up, even knowing that you would sacrifice FIRE for longer?
Could the job you wish to pursue be something you could due post-FIRE? (For example, my degree is in teaching and that is my passion, but I work a corporate job till I have FU money then I will most likely teach because then the money doesn't matter)
Does working 40 hours a week at a job that you find okay really suck that bad? I would do some nasty stuff if it let me FIRE 5 years earlier than normal.

These are the questions I would wrestle with myself.
Thanks,
Hall11235

[arebelspy]

I disagree with this quote as a blanket truth.

Allow me to emphasize a different part of the quote.

Among ourselves we differ in many qualities of body, head, and heart; we are unequally developed, mentally as well as physically. But each of us has the right to ask that he shall be protected from wrong-doing as he does his work and carries his burden through life. No man needs sympathy because he has to work, because he has a burden to carry. Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing; and this is a prize open to every man, for there can be no better worth doing than that done to keep in health and comfort and with reasonable advantages those immediately dependent upon the husband, the father, or the son. There is no room in our healthy American life for the mere idler, for the man or the woman whose object it is throughout life to shirk the duties which life ought to bring. Life can mean nothing worth meaning, unless its prime aim is the doing of duty, the achievement of results worth achieving.

Recognizing then that we are all different, how can one claim, in the last sentence, that life can "mean nothing worth meaning..." for everyone?  Why is your meaning the same as mine?

Maybe you get value out of "hard work worth doing" and "results worth achieving," whereas perhaps a monk sitting meditating, "achieving" nothing gets value and meaning out of that.

[Rollin]

Coming from a guy (President) who spent a whole lotta time recreating.  A whole lotta!

[Philociraptor]

There's a job and then there's work; they can be the same activity but often won't be. I would describe work as any activity with a corresponding result. In doing that activity, you can potentially enter a Flow state by matching up motivation, the challenge of the activity, and your skill level. Enjoyment in work is achieved by meaningful challenge and the growth of skills as a result of that challenge. Those in the FIRE community usually seek out new challenges after RE, and thus find new work. That work may not be paid employment though. I agree that enjoyment is most often found when doing something challenging.

[deborah]

The whole quote is extremely dated! It comes from a much more authoritarian time, a time when women had almost no place in working life, and were expected to be paid as second class citizens when they did enter it because they had been widowed, or had some other reason for a lack of a male bread-winner.

It also comes from someone who was privileged, and (unlike many of the people around him) had never known poverty and a hand to mouth existence.

At the time of that quote, there was (amongst the privileged) a very romanticized view of workers.

However, I see a lot of people struggling with a reason for being when they retire. This would be especially true anywhere where the first question people ask each other when they meet is "What do you do?" - as I have found with many Americans I have met. I think it is especially important for ER people to find a reason for being before they retire, and I see many who go back to work as having not successfully answered this question.

For instance, I met someone who has tried to retire who said "I am a world class engineer - when I retire, I will just be a retiree".

This is what ForuMMM is grappling with, and until each of us has our own answer, we will have difficulty in retirement.

In Australia, earlier this week, the ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics) released figures about happy people, and one of the indicators of an unhappy person was that they are retired. I have not been happier than since I have been retired, but I have found my purpose. I think it is uncommon for people to retire and have a purpose.

[forummm]

I totally agree that TR's quote is from a different time, and that as a sitting President, he may have had other reasons for using that framing. And I understand that other people have trouble figuring out who they are or having some reason for being if they retire. However, that is *not* my issue at all.

I will always be working on something (like MMM does), whether it's taking classes or teaching classes or building a fence in our yard or writing a book or whatever. But only because I find the projects interesting at the time. Once FI I don't need to be paid for it.

My issue is whether I should keep on my current path to get to FI the fastest, and then do whatever I want. Or take a risky but potentially more enjoyable (but probably still not as enjoyable as RE) path that is slower. Say 2-3 years status quo vs 6 years risky/likely more enjoyable career change.

[One Noisy Cat]

The whole quote is extremely dated! It comes from a much more authoritarian time, a time when women had almost no place in working life, and were expected to be paid as second class citizens when they did enter it because they had been widowed, or had some other reason for a lack of a male bread-winner.

It also comes from someone who was privileged, and (unlike many of the people around him) had never known poverty and a hand to mouth existence.

At the time of that quote, there was (amongst the privileged) a very romanticized view of workers.

However, I see a lot of people struggling with a reason for being when they retire. This would be especially true anywhere where the first question people ask each other when they meet is "What do you do?" - as I have found with many Americans I have met. I think it is especially important for ER people to find a reason for being before they retire, and I see many who go back to work as having not successfully answered this question.

For instance, I met someone who has tried to retire who said "I am a world class engineer - when I retire, I will just be a retiree".

This is what ForuMMM is grappling with, and until each of us has our own answer, we will have difficulty in retirement.

In Australia, earlier this week, the ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics) released figures about happy people, and one of the indicators of an unhappy person was that they are retired. I have not been happier than since I have been retired, but I have found my purpose. I think it is uncommon for people to retire and have a purpose.

Roosevelt was from a wealthy family but he did go out to the Dakotas as a young man and won respect from cowboys by working among them. He volunteered for combat duty in the Spanish-American war and wanted to for World War I but Woodrow Wilson wouldn't let him. With Candido Rondon, their expedition explored the Amazon river that lost three men and two later expeditions vanished without a trace. And if you think women had almost no place, you need to read up on his daughter Alice. Ain't no woman today that is half as liberated as "Baby Lee".

[forummm]

Interesting take on work and happiness: the rich are choosing to buy less leisure as their wealth grows and time passes.

http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21600989-why-rich-now-have-less-leisure-poor-nice-work-if-you-can-get-out

FOR most of human history rich people had the most leisure. In “Downton Abbey”, a drama about the British upper classes of the early 20th century, one aloof aristocrat has never heard of the term “weekend”: for her, every day is filled with leisure. On the flip side, the poor have typically slogged. Hans-Joachim Voth, an economic historian at the University of Zurich, shows that in 1800 the average English worker laboured for 64 hours a week. “In the 19th century you could tell how poor somebody was by how long they worked,” says Mr Voth.

In today’s advanced economies things are different. Overall working hours have fallen over the past century. But the rich have begun to work longer hours than the poor. In 1965 men with a college degree, who tend to be richer, had a bit more leisure time than men who had only completed high school. But by 2005 the college-educated had eight hours less of it a week than the high-school grads. Figures from the American Time Use Survey, released last year, show that Americans with a bachelor’s degree or above work two hours more each day than those without a high-school diploma.

Work in advanced economies has become more knowledge-intensive and intellectual. There are fewer really dull jobs, like lift-operating, and more glamorous ones, like fashion design. That means more people than ever can enjoy “exploit” at the office. Work has come to offer the sort of pleasures that rich people used to seek in their time off. On the flip side, leisure is no longer a sign of social power. Instead it symbolises uselessness and unemployment.

Research by Arlie Russell Hochschild of the University of California, Berkeley, suggests that as work becomes more intellectually stimulating, people start to enjoy it more than home life. “I come to work to relax,” one interviewee tells Ms Hochschild. And wealthy people often feel that lingering at home is a waste of time.

[forummm]

As humans, as soon as we reach the goal we set another one. We move the goal posts. That's how we're taught in this culture. You never arrive. We don't know how to live in the moment. We know how to prepare for the moment. We're always working towards something, but once that thing gets here we don't know how to enjoy it and we just start working towards something else again. Happiness is always on the other side of an achievement still to be attained.

Life is lived in the meanwhile.

I kept telling myself that once I achieved this next thing that my life was going to start. And then at some point I realized--this is my life.

Musk (workaholic):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NU7W7qe2R0A

[arebelspy]

Life is lived in the meanwhile.

Reminds me of wait but why's pixel post: http://waitbutwhy.com/2013/11/life-is-picture-but-you-live-in-pixel.html