I've seen several variations of this discussion over the last decade, so here are some thoughts to consider.
It sounds like you're saying that you're FI but have no reason to quit your job. In Malcolm Gladwell's book "Outliers", he describes the ideal occupation as allowing autonomy, complexity, and fulfillment. Personally if I was a doctor, lawyer, university professor, or independent investor then maybe I'd see no reason to quit. (However I saw no reason to start those careers, either.) Maybe the same could be said for a career in evaluating longboard design & performance, although I don't have many customers seeking my sage advice.
Another reason is I'm not sure what I would fill my time with.
This concern is in the top three of every retiree. In fact, since you have an inflation-fighting pension and cheap healthcare, this concern is probably #1 on your list. But six months after leaving the workplace, every military retiree with whom I've spoken has said that they wonder what the heck they were worrying about.
If you choose to quit the job then you have to be responsible for your own entertainment. Having a workplace can form a social structure to provide that entertainment, as well as giving you a reason to get out of bed in the morning. But Dory36, the creator of Early-Retirement.org, used to describe the workplace with an analogy. You go through your working days with one bucket in each hand, labeled "FI" and "BS". Both fill slowly over the years, although you have some influence over their fill rate. When the FI bucket is full, however, something odd happens to the BS bucket. It suddenly fills more rapidly than ever and begins overflowing.
Again, if you're getting autonomy/complexity/fulfillment then maybe the BS bucket doesn't overflow. But FI certainly gives you choices.
Speaking of Ernie Zelinski, you could try his "Get-A-Life Tree":
http://bestretirementquotes.blogspot.com/2009/10/get-life-tree-great-retirement-planning.htmlAnother reason is, I think I owe my kids the example of dad getting up and going to work and being successful in the world, and not just hanging out in my shorts all the time, and then one day telling them to go out into the world and bag a bunch of money.
Totally disagree.
First reason: One of the old-timer members of Early-Retirement.org, Jarhead (also a military vet), ER'd in the early 1980s. He had the same concern you've expressed, and he decided to demonstrate the virtues of work. Each morning he'd get up, shave, dress up in coat & tie, and be at the breakfast table to greet his teen daughter as she got ready for school. He'd drive off "for work" before she caught the school bus. Then he'd hang out at the local coffee shop until she was clear, and return home to change clothes and enjoy his day the ER way. This continued until she left for college.
Two decades later he confessed this subterfuge to his adult daughter, and she laughed at him. She said that she'd never noticed what he was doing because she was too totally wrapped up in her teenage life (with its drama & angst) to notice what her Dad was doing with his time. Even if she'd noticed, she was too busy with her own drama & angst to care. Unfortunately you might have to wait a few years to test this on your own kids.
Second reason: When I retired from the military I told my eight-year-old daughter that I had a job offer. I explained how we had enough money for the family that I didn't need to work, but if I took the job then we'd have even more money. We'd be so rich that we could buy her a horse now and buy her a car for her 16th birthday. She was absolutely thrilled at a Dad-Of-The-Decade level. Then I told her that I'd have to work every weekday from 8 AM to 4:30 PM instead of being home when she got home from school. She'd have to get herself up in the mornings, get her own breakfasts, get out the door on her own, come home from school on her own, fix her own snacks, and take care of herself (and her homework) until I got home. I told her that I wouldn't have midwatches or weekend duty (let alone deployments) but that I wouldn't be able to volunteer to help out at school or chaperone fieldtrips. It took her about 10 seconds to decide that wasn't worth the privileges of having a horse and a car. She wanted the quality parental time.
Oddly enough, for the next nine years she'd get herself up in the mornings, get her own breakfasts, get out the door on her own, come home from school on her own, fix her own snacks, and take care of herself (and her homework). She didn't need me to be there to
do anything for her. She just wanted me to
be there for her. Of course from a parental perspective I'm sure that my after-school presence helped work through a few drama/angst meltdowns, and it probably deterred the "visiting-boyfriend-of-the-week" program.
So I think the only thing your kids want/need from you is your time. Younger kids just want the thrill of seeing you in their classrooms and on field trips. Older kids may be a little skeptical that you have enough money to take care of them, but you can explain the budget to them and reassure them that their allowance is part of the plan. High schoolers would be reassured to see that you're busting your butt in the workplace to bag the money to achieve financial independence, and then hanging out in your shorts to be successful in the world in your own way. I think they'd rather be judged on fulfilling their own goals than to be keeping score with dollar bills.
Another reason is my job doesn't drive me crazy, maybe because I refuse to let it do so. I get paid fairly well for a job with not much stress and steady hours. I get every weekend off, plus every other Friday (thanks to a compressed schedule), and you can set your watch by my arrival time home every day.
Between vacation time, every other Friday, holidays, and vacation days, I get 160 days off per year. I like to focus on the positives of that, and not the 200 other days per year. I have a long commute, and I'm not solving world hunger, but, that's not so bad. If I can't be happy with 160 days off per year, I probably can't be happy with 365 days off per year.
So I focus on finding as much joy as I can every day while still working, trying to enjoy what I have without becoming consumerist, and raising my kids to grow up with a healthy attitude to work, and a sensible attitude about what money buys and what it doesn't buy.
I could blather on about "live the life you want instead of trying to live one that doesn't suck", but you can run the experiment for yourself. See if you can get 30 days off (or a minimum of two weeks). Treat it as an FI sabbatical. Instead of cleaning the house and your desk, doing the yardwork, and catching up on your To Do list, treat it as the rest of your life. Spend a day or two getting caught up on sleep, but then put some thought (and spouse discussion) into how you'd spend your day. Get your exercise, do 20 minutes a day of chores, work on a project, spend time with the family, keep adding boxes to your Get-A-Life Tree.
At the end of your time off, take that long commute back to the workplace and see where you stand on your FI & BS buckets.
By the way, Intel Corp used to have a very generous sabbatical program for their more senior employees. A high percentage of them followed the same procedure during their time off, and when they returned to work it didn't take them long to realize what a toxic workplace environment they'd been marinating in. That sabbatical benefit led to at least two ERs who I know personally, and I think it jeopardized the entire program.
I'll leave you with one more thought. On active duty you probably had a set of emergency/casualty procedures that you trained on, held drills on, and critiqued the performance of. You should do the same for ER. The reason is that someday there's going to be a medical emergency or a family problem. Maybe it'll be yours personally, or your spouse/kids, or a family elder. You'll take leave from the job and deal with the situation. But whatever happens, about 48 hours into that crisis you're going to find yourself questioning exactly why you're going to work when you could be living life on your own personal terms. You may even be facing weeks or years of potential recuperation, rehab, and caregiving (hopefully not for you but possibly for that loved one). It has a way of forcing you to define and reorganize your priorities.
Your military training and your emergency/casualty procedures got you through the operational crises. Maybe you'll get through your personal/family crisis just fine, shake off the fallout, and scamper back to the workplace to pick up where you left off. But I'd suggest that you'd have much more time for thoughtful analysis & discussion of this situation if you do it now, just like training & drills, instead of having to go through it when the crisis happens to you.
I think it's much better to have an ER contingency plan than to boldly proclaim that you choose to work for the rest of your life.