Ask HN: People who cashed out early and stopped working: What is your life like?
inspired from: retired husband syndrome [0] and original comment [1]
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28785222 [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28786321
189 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 206 ms ] threadI'm sorry to say this, but this is one of the saddest things a person can say in my opinion. You can definitely become your job, but I can't see myself ever wanting something like that.
I hope you don’t take it personally, because it’s not intended as such, but this is sad.
I know, first-world problems.
A lot of the posts in here are based on a singular view and it worries me.
Only some of us are very fortunate to be in a position where we can simply quit our job or pivot to a new way of life, but the majority of people in the world cannot do that and survive well. We should never forget the need to be able to consider walking in the shoes of others.
But to each their own, my perspective is that I don't want to have work-related regrets (ideally no regrets at all) when dying, and me being my job would definitely be #1 or #2 on such a list.
I would change it to "you are what you can", which expands possibilities up to the sky (with paragliding, sky is included)
> you have Stockholm syndrome, snap out of it
Very rude.
If I retired I'd be able to learn anything I want - but If I wanted to tackle the challenges I have fun tackling, state-of-the-art and involving some nifty constraints and difficulties... I'd need whole teams around me, and a large infrastructure comparable to a multinational company.
That's what I get now - working. If I retired, I could only find it, I think, by getting the same job.
If I'm already working there, doing the stuff that I find fun, in a schedule that fits me and keeps me healthy and safe, and already relatively financially secure - to the point where I don't have to bother with focusing on corporate ladder or anything like that - what do I gain by retiring? At least on this aspect (there is obviously a tradeoff)
Not to mention I get to do some empowered volunteering from within the company itself. It helps that I actually have respect for the leadership, up to the CEO, as actual human beings. Not reverence - respect. Specially looking at some other companies out there.
I have a whole other perspective. But toss me into a meatgrinder job and I agree with you immediately.
Finally, I hope you see how your comment on Stockholm syndrome and snapping out of it was mean and ignorant towards the parent poster
I think many people are trapped by this dream of attaining financial freedom so they can escape work, but in a way that is a cynical take because it presumes that if you are getting paid to do something then it must be something bad that you wouldn't do otherwise.
Such a mindset is unfortunate because harbouring escapist fantasies is a really good way to undermine one's ability to find the joy in what they "have" to do. I spent over a decade not realising that I wasn't suffering from work, but from my hangups about work.
My advice to those who hate not only their job but any conceivable job, and who nonetheless have a job, is to get as good an understanding about why that is as possible. Reflect on it. Try moving around and changing your environment. Try different jobs. Try jobs that have one redeeming thing about them and seem awful in other ways.
The goal isn't to find the perfect job, i.e., the one that fits all your preconceived notions of what you want out of life, but rather to develop an understanding of what your assumptions are and where they come from. It is a useful mindset to be open-minded about what you really want and how you might get that.
Enter association with other people and assume obligations and responsibilities? That's not too different from having a job or a career.
You should update your world facts database, we’ve been on the 7 billion revision for over a decade, and are about to tick over again. Currently at 7.898B humans alive.
Of course you can care about other things, but if you care about this thing then work is the easiest way to fill that fix.
https://hbr.org/2019/12/what-happens-when-your-career-become...
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/wealth/earn/why-your-id...
https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2021/10/05/career-job-work-i...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/06/style/work-life-balance-t...
https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2021/09/self-obje...
All i can read this as is “Brooks Was Here”
Hoping that the global economy is past the hangover by the end of the decade.
Some people feel that if they were sufficiently rich, they will never work. I think one source of this view are the health effects of the sedentary lifestyle associated with tech, and I respect people who say that. It's all to common for people to be overworked in tech, so I understand people who want to exit for that reason too.
Still others, don't really enjoy work at all and would exit the workforce if given the opportunity. I respect that view too but it's not for me.
Because even if I had unlimited financial; resources I NEED to still work. I believe work, especially the kind that you feel is helping people and results in deep concentration called flow is beneficial for my mental health.
If I stopped working and entered a perma-vacation, I would go out of my mind. There are only so many golf courses, and so many days you can wake up late, before I would be bored out of my mind. When I go on vacation, I enjoy it and need it. But after about a week, I start to get bored and to miss work. I need a challenge.
There is a nice documentary called Born Rich by Jamie Johnson (one of the heirs to the Johnson & Johnson empire's wealth) in which he films the sons and daughters of billionaires (it's on YouTube). What I found fascinating is the happiest ones seemed to be those that applied themselves by working or in one case applying themselves in academia all the way to a PhD.
Even if I stopped my current start-up, I think I would find myself spending a few months catching up on technologies I didn't have the chance to catch up on, and imagine I would just start a new start-up after that.
I have been out of work for a long while, and family uses up lots of time. But I have always suffered with balance, programming entirely consumes me, and I ebb and flow with it. I feel totally disconnected and disenchanted with it and have no money and lots of debt.
And have no job security or fallback. Given a good manager and the right position I could happily amble along and be a useful asset.
But I am very disillusioned with web work and the industry. And I think web programming is a tremendously wasteful brain drain.
However if I had money and time, my perspective would be totally different!
Martial Arts Music Cooking
Here are some things I would love to learn more about
World History Science Gardening Sailing Camping + foraging
Here are some places I've yet to see:
Antarctica, Machu Picchu, Angkor Wat, Tibet, The Pyramids
Not to mention spending more quality time with my friends and family.
Enjoying more of my parents' finite years together
Spending time nurturing my children.
I am not my job. My job serves me - it brings me closer to my goals. When that is not true, it's time for a new job.
I love DIY so I've used that time to refurbish two apartments and catch up on gold rush. This time it's been 8 months and I'm just working on a side project.
By now I'm not enjoying that much anymore. It's been too long and I start to miss making part of the bunch. I'm also not fully using my time anymore, partially because in the end my wife is still working as well as my friends. I believe there's a limit to happiness when you do things on your own and don't share. At least I'm realizing that. I guess it's time to go back!
Also I wonder if I'll still be able to do this when I'm in my 40s or 50s. My parents always taught me it gets tougher to find a job as you get older. Obviously someone that's good will always find, but I wonder in general how aging will apply to tech.
Edit: As a follow up thought and this is what I've realized, the weekends are a pretty good picture of how we'd behave at retirement. If we are lazy on weekends, we'll be lazy afterwards. If we keep ourselves busy in the weekends with non work stuff, we'll probably be the same after retirement.
Interesting, thanks for the insight. I've also heard that, your teenage hobbies are another source of where you might find your passion in retirement. What did you do for fun as a teenager, and how does that compare to what you do during your breaks?
My DIY face then went into sleep mode for many years and came back when I started taking breaks from work.
What you said might be spot on.
I think you have that the wrong way around. That should be:
> "Thanks" to modern distractions like binge watching and doom scrolling people lose their creativity and drive to do anything but further please their addictions.
(somewhat /s)
I recently found the adventure riding community and built up a Husky 701 for multi-day (hopefully multi-week in the future) on/off road trips. It’s not unlike a small open source project but more physically active. I’m early 40s now and plan to explore on a bike into my 60s.
I also recently bought a ranch in Colorado. This isn’t from my childhood but turned out to hit all the right notes for me. Ranchin’ is almost impossible to make a profit at but I’ve met a bunch of people now who can’t stop doing it and I understand why. It’s a never ending stream of natural projects, big and small, that engage every part of you mentally and physically. Again here, not unlike a (larger) software project.
I went into tech because I thought I liked hacking, turns out I just like work, especially on systems you can iterate on every day and see improvement.
As for tech, I haven’t written a line of code in years and rarely use the internet except for practical things like maps and basic information. I still browse HN occasionally. Not sure why as there’s not a lot of content relevant to my current interests. It still has a little of whatever I loved about tech in the 2000-2015 era, which seems entirely gone from the wider internet now.
Getting a paycheck means surrendering your ability to wake up and live your life based completely on your own internal clock, and it can be a big drain on your mental health and physical well being. There are ways of charging your battery, but it's not always possible without risk and/or sacrifice if you weren't born rich or somehow otherwise financially lucky.
Health is wealth too though... We're usually born with a "glass full of water" that represents our health - mental and physical health. Over time we drink from that glass until it's gone... Once you burn out, you're toast. It's important to always be cognizant of where your water supply is, and to try to stop letting people drink from your glass before it completely runs dry... If you're lucky, you'll turn your water into a nice vintage wine.
Best case you keep your work habits and can continue working on your hobbies like you did work previously, but worst case it will all look like those weekends.
Edit: A side note being, between the changes to work culture and me gaining the experience to be more desirable to work places, I’ve managed to move to a more flexible remote position that gives me a fair bit of control over my day to day. This has definitely increased my ability to be productive in my off time, due to the lowered stress on my general energy levels.
I think this depends on how one’s current job is affecting them.
If you’re near burnout or just work in a very stressful environment, the weekends are more about recovery from the week and might not be a good predictor of future choices when not stressed/burnt out.
Basing this comment mostly on personal experience since I’ve had both productive weekends and lazy/lost weekends and it generally depends on how the current job is going.
This resonates a lot. My partner is a startup founder, and fairly often their weekend is life maintenance and recovery because their work week allows nothing else. I spend much more time on side projects, but on some weeks I can tell on Friday that it’s not going to be a productive weekend by any standard except self care.
- Recovery
- Steady state
I think understanding that both exist is important so as not to fall into negative patterns of thinking like "I'm just wasting my time away" vs. "I'm giving my system a very needed break".
But I also get 1% lazier every day, and after 6 months it seems like I eat breakfast, and then the day is over.
There's also this time I had a chat with my manager and peers about whether or not to hire this guy. We wanted to hire him, but we had a feeling he wouldn't stay long with us. He was very entrepreneurial. The conclusion straight away was "it's fine, if he stays with us just 1 year, we already benefit from it". I'm not saying I'm this guy, but it sounds acceptable nowadays.
If I had a valuable employee that could leave us for 2-6 months a year (without pay), without us having support issues from the absence, I wouldn’t much mind it, and if I don’t mind then HR would never get involved. My employees work for me, not for our HR department. The only time HR processes are forced upon me is in hiring situations, the yearly employee development plan review meeting or if someone logs a serious complaint, like bullying or sexual harassment, and, that’s not because of HR, it’s because the four CEOs have decided those are the organisation wise processes to follow.
If you mean hiring processes, nobody really cares about absence periods in my experience. Sure you’ll be asked, but it’s not like it’s really relevant in most cases. It’s like hiring a young woman around 30 with no children (I work in the public sector where there are fairly good maternity leave plans), you know there is a pretty big chance they’ll have one or two kids while working for you, but if they are good, then you’ll still want them.
Another myth I see spread all the time. HR departments don't care about this. If they ask, it's only because someone told them it's a thing to be concerned about, and they're parroting what they heard. Make something up if you really feel like you need to address it and are afraid to tell them to fuck off. It's a stupid question that doesn't come from any legitimate business concern. In my 30+ year career, I was asked about a brief gap between jobs only one time, and that was decades ago. If a place actually cares about this, it's a good sign that you should find a job somewhere better. If you're really concerned, just leave the dates off your resume entirely, or at least leave the months off. Who cares about this stuff?
I work for 2-3 years and take anywhere from 6-18 months off in between jobs. I'm pushing 50 and it hasn't been a problem.
I hear the ageism claim all the time, but I've seen no evidence of it whatsoever. I have no problem finding a job when I put myself on the market, usually within a few weeks at most. Many of the people I work with are in their 40s and 50s. I've never heard or seen any age discrimination.
I occasionally run into people in their 50s who haven't learned anything new in decades, but they're always working. Sometimes they express fear that they won't be able to find a new job. In all these cases, it's warranted, but also deserved. Regardless of your age, if you're not keeping up with the technology trends, you don't belong in the game. You don't need to chase the latest flavor, but if you're a software engineer, you'd better keep up with at least some modern tech stacks. That applies regardless of age.
Another third of my time is spent pursuing paragliding. It’s something I found interesting before, but I just never had the flexibility in my life to take more than a week off work. Now I can live in Colombia for a month at a time, both a great environment and change of pace, and a fantastic way to learn.
The rest of my time I work on a little mini startup. It’s different than what I was doing before because it’s decidedly ‘lifestyle’. No VC money. Just building something I find interesting with people I like. If I don’t want to do something, or I don’t have the time, I simply say that! It’s all the fun of building a product and bringing it to the market with a world less stress.
The most important thing to know is: I didn’t plan any of this. I was so burnt out that thinking of anything I wanted to do was challenging. But after six months of cranking on cars and other mundane projects the world opened in front of me, and I realized all those things I loved doing as a child are still with me.
It went really well for him for about 30 years, and then he started to decline into depression. I don't think it was directly related to being retired.
He built a barbecue out of cinder blocks, then rebuilt it out of bricks. He learned to knot in order to make hammocks. He took up painting with acrylics -- I wouldn't say he ever became good at it, but he liked it and that's the point. The same for charcoal -- but he didn't like the mess, so he dropped it quickly.
He took up teaching advanced math to the local elementary school kids. He taught himself programming in BASIC and wrote math games and text adventures about our neighborhood.
He watched a lot of movies, read a lot of books, and kept the house on a schedule. He went from being an adequate cook to a reasonably good one.
He built relationships with the neighbors and went for a walk twice a day when the weather was adequate.
That sounds fascinating. Are those available online somewhere? I absolutely love text adventures, would love to try it out.
I can relay his three best pieces of advice, though, all of which he related to me around the time I went to college.
1. Don't take a course where the professor wrote the book. If they knew any way to explain the material, they put it in the book, and won't be able to help you more than that.
2. People get excited about all sorts of things, and if you're reasonably friendly and available they will invite you to everything. That's not bad in itself, but you need to be selective about what you go to, or else you'll find that you never did the things that you needed to do, just the ones that you wanted to do.
3. There are lots of reversible mistakes, and others that are disastrous to try to recover from. Try to recognize your mistakes and back out of them before you hit the disaster point. Marriage is easily but painfully reversible until you have kids; then it's a disaster.
I hope your dad feels better soon.
Strangely, I get up earlier as there's no dread of the corporate environment.
I have standing time with friends and family: Depending on the season, Weekly golf, lunch, tennis. Daily walks with my spouse.
Volunteer efforts provide some opportunities to give, feel internal and external appreciation and a sense of adding value to others.
Plenty of time for reading, learning, experimenting and puzzle solving. There are so many resources to learn about new topics and try things.
When I hear people express fear of being bored after their career, I have to pick my jaw off the floor. I can't imagine there has been a time with more information freely available.
On my days off I catch up on chores. I take care of my body by going to the gym, yoga studio, boxing gym, or ride my bike. I spend time with friends if they are available, which is tricky because I'm only off every other weekend. I bake sourdough bread and seek perfection in extracting the perfect cup of espresso. I read HN.
I often think what I would be doing if I met your criteria for answering this questions and didn't have to work the other 3-4 days of my week, and I think the answer would be to look for meaningful work. There is a fulfillment or sense of purpose in work that doesn't come to me in the prolonged absence of it, I don't define myself by it, but as Marcus Aurelius said in his Meditations:
“At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: “I have to go to work — as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for — the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?”
So you were born to feel “nice”? Instead of doing things and experiencing them? Don’t you see the plants, the birds, the ants and spiders and bees going about their individual tasks, putting the world in order, as best they can? And you’re not willing to do your job as a human being? Why aren’t you running to do what your nature demands?
You don’t love yourself enough. Or you’d love your nature too, and what it demands of you.”
Sorry to nitpick, but spiders build the web and then cowardly hide and wait till a victim gets caught and is completely helpless. Not really a model of moral virtue.
Retirement is great and you shouldn't let anyone talk you out of it. The guys at the top of the pyramid aren't working very hard, so why should you?
To quote Kurt Vonnegut: "I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different."
I worked a ho-hum programming job for nearly 20 years (yes, just the one), feeling miserable for at least the last 3. There was no "cashing out", though when the company sold to private investors I got something like an extra 75% of a year of pay. It wasn't that money, but saving (index fund investing) all along that would have let me say "to heck with it, I can retire today" (albeit with a slightly reduced standard of living).
Instead, I waited until something part time & much more fulfilling came my way. Now I get to work on open source all day, or as little as I want, and I get paid for a substantial chunk of it. To my surprise, working 50-60% as long each week not only means I don't have to do dip into investments, but I can still add to my investments.
Now, the timing of this change was not great, because 5 months later COVID hit, so the travel aspects of my new life haven't materialized in the way I thought they would. When I start travelling as freely as I thought I would when I left traditional work in late 2019, that's when I hope to truly feel semi-retired.
When will I fully retire? Not while I can get paid to work on open source software, largely on my own terms. When will I stop working on open source? Hopefully not anytime soon.
Any tips on finding "something part time & much more fulfilling"? Did you just wait for something to find you, did you actively search out opportunities..?
So it feels like there was a big element of luck, but also I feel that having a history of open source work visible on github, as well as creating personal connections in the open source world, helped it happen for me.
There aren't a whole lot of Adafruits out there, where you're shipping new hardware products weekly, most of them with open source drivers.
If I had a way to make more money without losing the ^ balance, I'd jump on it. But, I am not running crazy behind any one of those.
I realise what I said would probably not make sense to me from 10 years ago - it was all about fun, and money then.
technically i didnt really quit working. but rather i am free to pursue what i want to do. for example im going to build my own house. and grow and sell organic food. i want to develop technology to improve farming. i enjoy designing and building things in all sorts of mediums. i like working, but i have an entrepreneurial spirit. and in order to feel fulfilled i have to pursue my own ventures.
Makes it easy for people like me to buy your stuff. Anyways, good luck!
How did you get into building polebarns? And then framing houses? Who did you convince to take you on? Did you have prior experience?
for the framing job i walked up to a framing crew and asked if they needed a guy. they did and so i got hired. i just convinced the boss. the place where i moved to has lots of small crews and lots of home building going on right now.
previous relevant experience includes woodworking and machining. i also watched a fair amount of youtube before and during. ability to do fractional math and read a tape. ability to read and produce mechanical drawings helped.
really it was just being interested in the field and convincing someone i was serious enough about it. and i followed through everyday.
I've sort of conned myself into thinking I could start some solo projects on my own in the past 6 months, but it just hasn't happened due to classes and a myriad of distractions. Recently I've been beating myself up a bit for it, but I know that isn't productive. Once I solve a few ongoing projects in my life and I get things moving a bit faster for the farm I'll start keeping to a strict schedule of farming from 6-9am, then going to my coworkspace and code until maybe 3pm, then work out, then either socialize/read or go to a local hackerspace and work on side-projects.
Medium/long term it's important to me to not just live off of my savings and to generate enough value (not off investments) to maintain my quality of life.
Curious what this involves for you. Are you in an urban, rural, exurb, etc area? What are you growing?
at the same time. it is a lot of work, you should try it before you just jump in. ive had suburban gardens for years. so i kinda know what to expect.
Stepping away allowed me to completely reprioritize what mattered to me and what I wanted out of life. I rekindled old friendships and love interests and eventually met my wife. I realized I'd never actually been truly happy before on a consistent basis, and learned what life is actually all about. That money and career success are simply means to an end of living well and loving others.
I feel for people that are always trapped in survival mode because you get stuck in these ruts that become completely impossible to see out of. You end up so shortsighted and focusing on something that doesn't really matter in the end. But life is just a game that's meant to be played for the enjoyment of it. There's no prize at the end, and your score doesn't matter.
I didn't have anything planned, which was a huge mistake on my part. Long story [0] short, I was surviving on my earnings from the job for more than 4 years before writing ebooks got me back on track.
I'd say it has been tough going. But even now I can't imagine going back to work.
[0] https://learnbyexample.github.io/my-book-writing-experience/
Was kind of semi retired but still CTO and directed the team on projects and issues.
Then Covid hit.
Now went back to work full time rebuilding systems but looking forward to jump into semi-retirement next year again.
The most important thing I learned?
Time.
I’ll do anything to preserve time freedom. Housekeeper, transportation, people to do stuff for me. I’ll do it all to save this precious resource.
And these are not things that cost a lot, but because I do them, I have more time to spend on myself.
Having the freedom of time is completely underrated and misunderstood and I reckon that most people do not know what to do with the extra time once they step back from the daily grind.
Which contradicts hiring someone to do my tasks.
My retirement plan (I wanna be independent by 50) is to have time to do all my chores proper and in my time.
Would you say you got used to that lifestyle? Do you earn so much that it doesn't matter from an expenses standpoint?
I'd I would hire someone that would be 5k and more per year which I can't save. 15 y * 5k 75k
In the example of cleaning your own home, everyone should be able to do that barring a disability. Learn how to do it, learn to do it well, then offload it to someone else and routinely ensure you know how to do it well. I think a similar approach is useful in business as well. I think middle managers and execs give themselves way too strong of a pass on understanding how to actually do the jobs in their own company. This is partially why so many managers have almost no idea how their internal systems actually work.
Anyway, diatribe over.
Humans are built for problem solving and the struggle and the adventure of challenge. I think we need it like we need food, water, sleep, etc.
I quit my job as a scientist and rolled over all my retirement into Bitcoin a few years ago. That has gone well. I started a business of growing medical marijuana and I love that. That has gone well too. Incredible amounts of work and 12 hour days and struggles, especially at first, but I love the challenge of trying to grow the best in the world and in my area. I will probably be able to quit if I wanted to soon. But I can’t imagine what I would do. I want to travel but I know that won’t last. I’ll probably just scale back my weed operation some but still concentrate on chasing the dragon of growing the best weed. I love it that much. I should also add that I don't even use marijuana. I just love plants and always have.
At least with money in traditional index fund investments, entire economies have to collapse before my money goes away, and if there's one thing I learned about the stock market, is that it can be irrational (yet irrationally consistent!) far longer than I expect it can be.
https://www.tradingview.com/chart/BTCUSD/UuzUBUTa-Bitcoin-4-...
The end of the cycle is this December and I will sell and diversify my portfolio in case crypto fails completely. I will buy back in crypto after a year with a significant portion of my portfolio though. I don’t see crypto going away ever. I see the next decade being the decade of hard money like crypto and gold after the unprecedented money printing decade we just experienced.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2SL
I think you should be more worried about your stock portfolio crashing. I won’t be in equities again until I see a significant reversion to the mean. They were overextended a few years ago, now we need a new word for what they are haha.
https://www.currentmarketvaluation.com/models/buffett-indica...
https://www.currentmarketvaluation.com/models/s&p500-mean-re...
Doesn't the entire viability of bitcoin as a currency depend on miners mining?
I think that's only true for some people. More generally we need to feel useful. For many people (women especially) that means caring for people, making sure they are well fed, warm etc. not problem solving or adventure.
It's enabled me to help homeschool our 8 kids over the years (now all flown; youngest just started college) and travel quite a bit with the kids to various music and dance camps around the world, etc. Plus timber framing with sons, wood-fired pizza making, etc, etc.
Don't know if I'll ever formally retire, but could see doing a lot more travel visiting kids and grandkids around the country, and doing more woodworking/timber framing.
Part of the appeal of work for me is the good example it sets to the kids. Work hard, get rewards (and not just financial rewards).
So to each his own!
It has been a very difficult transition for me. I have had 3 or 4 years of borderline depression despite having more money than god :-)
The loss of structure, status, social interaction, goals hits hard.
The problem is, I don’t want a job and probably lack the motivation to do another business.
I need to build hobbies and friends outside of a work context, I know.
My advice to people is to be careful what you wish for!
It's work, sure, but all you really have to do is hire the right person to lead the effort (and build a team under them) while you call the bigger shots. It only requires as much energy as you want to put in.