{"id":6612,"date":"2017-12-15T12:35:56","date_gmt":"2017-12-15T16:35:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apps8.devmaverick.com\/prw\/?p=6612"},"modified":"2021-01-02T10:20:11","modified_gmt":"2021-01-02T14:20:11","slug":"envisioning-life-without-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apps1.devmaverick.com\/prw\/blog\/envisioning-life-without-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Envisioning Life Without Work"},"content":{"rendered":"

Financial independence and early retirement (FIRE) are growing in popularity, but you don\u2019t have to browse the comments sections of Forbes or Yahoo Finance long to find plenty of skeptics.<\/p>\n

The FIRE critics represent many viewpoints. There are the well-intentioned risk-averse types, hesitant about the viability of supposedly \u201csafe\u201d withdrawal rates in today\u2019s high-valuation environment. There are the traditional big-spender consumers, indignant about the viability of a low-spending lifestyle. And, of course, there are the ornery disbelievers, eager to pick apart the details of success stories and tell us all why it can\u2019t be done.<\/p>\n

Can you imagine? No more resumes, cover letters or worrying about who is looking at my LinkedIn profile<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But of all the negative reactions to early retirement, there\u2019s one that I find to be just plain sad:<\/p>\n

\u201cRetire early? I don\u2019t know what I would do with all that time without my job. I would be bored.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll give you a pass if you\u2019re one of the lucky few whose job is your passion \u2013 that elusive \u201ctrue calling\u201d that gnaws at you any time you\u2019re away. If you can\u2019t imagine doing something else because you\u2019re in love with what you do every day, great! Never retire from that.<\/p>\n

But if you\u2019re like most people, you probably aren\u2019t jumping out of bed at 5 AM every day thinking, \u201cWow, I can\u2019t wait to start sitting in meetings and re-sizing text boxes in PowerPoint again!\u201d<\/p>\n

If the only thing separating you from boredom is a career you don\u2019t really love, how dull are you?<\/p>\n

Bringing possibilities back into my life<\/h2>\n

When I first stumbled upon the idea of financial independence and early retirement, I was feeling passionless about my work. It was consuming the majority of my life, including evenings and weekends. It was interrupting my social life. It was disturbing my sleep. Why was I doing this to myself?<\/p>\n

Just a few years prior, I had been a wide-eyed student full of career possibilities. Maybe I\u2019ll study business, I had thought. Or what about urban planning? Art and architecture are fascinating, too. Or maybe sociology? Hey, maybe I\u2019ll just open a food truck instead.<\/p>\n

This notion of work as self-identity seems to be correlated with age. The longer someone\u2019s been in the workforce, the more likely he or she seems to be to depend on work for meaning, purpose, and something to do every day. Those open-minded days of childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood \u2013 during which anything seemed to be possible \u2013 are long gone.<\/p>\n

I missed having that array of possibilities for my life.<\/p>\n

I had chosen one of them \u2013 a good choice, in spite of the negatives \u2013 but I felt myself going deeper and deeper down one path. Professionally speaking, the next 30 years of my life were more or less mapped out for me: Work in my industry for a few more years. Get a master\u2019s degree in my field. Return to a more senior role. Work my way up the ladder. Eventually retire \u2013 maybe even \u201cearly,\u201d at 55 or 60. Somewhere in there, try to take a few weeks of vacation time.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s nothing wrong with choosing that path. But for me, it was feeling less and less fulfilling with each passing year. In choosing one path, I felt myself giving up on a hundred other interests \u2013 a hundred unfulfilled dreams.<\/p>\n

On one particularly unsatisfying work day, I took out a blank piece of paper and started writing frantically. What do I really want to do with my life?<\/p>\n

Anything that came to mind, I wrote down. I didn\u2019t try to categorize the ideas right away, though one idea often led to related ones, and I grouped them if it made sense.<\/p>\n

In my prior profession, working with clients on strategic issues, we called this \u201cconcept mapping\u201d or \u201cmind mapping.\u201d Some people like to start with big-picture concepts. Others like to start at a more granular level and then group ideas together. It doesn\u2019t really matter how you do it; the point is just to get as many ideas down on paper as you can. Don\u2019t stop to judge them; don\u2019t take time to analyze or edit. Just keep adding ideas.<\/p>\n