The Pursuit of Life Without Work

Early retirement sounds appealing. But what makes it meaningful?

Today’s Vocation Project article is a guest post from Nick Weising. Nick studied Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell and now works at a think tank in Washington, DC. Nick’s article today comes from a very basic question about work: Is the point of working just to reach a point where work is no longer needed?

Retirement is a lofty goal many workers strive for throughout their career. It is front-of-mind for anyone taking their finances seriously, even if it is a long time away. I was reminded of this recently– I asked a friend of mine, a newly-commissioned Air Force officer, how things were going. She said that things were good, and that she only needed to wait about nineteen and a half years until she qualified for her military pension. While many people work hard to accumulate wealth, many others work so someday they won’t have to. This is an old idea: while Otto von Bismarck is credited for creating the first modern old-age social insurance program in Germany, rudimentary pension programs have existed since Roman times. Nowadays, retirement is achieved through a combination of public assistance and consistent saving and investing throughout one's career.

Photo by Maria Teneva on Unsplash

For most people, building a good retirement fund will take most of their life. Building a solid retirement portfolio will likely take more than 30 or 40 years for most workers—even then, many workers might not be ready to retire. But what if there were a way to speed this up—and then, to retire early?

About fifteen years ago, a small and dedicated group of people began a movement looking to retire early: FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early). Those in the movement want to retire in their forties or even thirties rather than in their mid-sixties, as most do. To achieve this, FIRE-hopefuls will save aggressively during their working years and invest it to grow their money as fast as possible, with the hope of living off the large nest egg they’ve grown. Whereas an ideal budget for a non-FIRE worker puts aside maybe fifteen or twenty percent of their paycheck for retirement, FIRE workers aim to save and invest most of their income, sometimes as much as eighty percent of what they bring in. This aggressive frugality is what makes FIRE the community it is.

These savings objectives are tough and require material sacrifices in one’s day-to-day life, but the rewards are enticing. Many people think the rewards are worth the sacrifice. The FIRE movement has built a community of like-minded people looking for help to plan this lifestyle. There is certainly a culture behind the movement, which broadly rejects taking on debt and embraces minimalism. I worry, though, that the FIRE movement is missing the point of work.

Click here to read the post and its comments.

This Reddit post shows the oversights that FIRE movement members make when they choose to pursue the lifestyle. By all accounts, the original poster here is a FIRE success story–a smashing success, even. Still, his spouse is clearly unhappy with how he is spending his early retirement. Setting aside the value of how he is occupying his time, if the original poster’s ultimate retirement goal is to spend his time taking drugs and playing Grand Theft Auto nonstop, then I see no reason why he could not have done that from the start. Why go through the hassle of saving millions of dollars and sacrificing for years?

Boredom and listlessness are common problems for all retirees. FIRE followers are no exception. This is what I imagine the original Reddit poster was trying to avoid confronting by his video game and marijuana use. And when FIRE members are hoping to spend most of life retired, this can cause serious distress. There are so many examples of people suffering from mental health issues after achieving FIRE. It is no wonder why: jobs give people structure, purpose, and social interaction.

These FIRE success stories reached the finish line and had to ask themselves, “Now what?” They realized they didn’t have an answer. They had a goal of not working and they achieved it. But “not working” isn’t a good enough goal on its own.

There are also many examples of FIRE followers who regret their involvement in the movement. For some people to meet their early-retirement goals, they must opt out of vacations, gifts, eating out, entertainment, new clothes, and other luxuries. For many, an increase in salary or a bigger 401(k) contribution is more valuable than a social event. An untold aspect of FIRE is just how lonely and sad it can be. So much of your crushingly finite time is spent squirreling away cash instead of pursuing passions, seeking community with others—or, frankly, having fun.

It is wrong to think that people will not work when they are retired. Even people who work hard jobs (say, in manual labor) and desperately want to retire to relax will find that they want to work again. When they retire, the leisure will be very sweet and well-deserved. But very soon, they will find themselves bored and seeking out ways to spend their time. This might be through family & friends, their local communities, hobbies, or even by getting another job.

It’s simple to think of work just in terms of pay and hours on the clock. But there’s something more to work. Dignified work offers a sense of structure in life. Good work gives us a sense of direction. It’s not always easy to replace that feeling.

Speaking personally, I save quite a bit of my money for retirement, though not nearly at the level of FIRE-devotees. It is prudent to save for the future and I encourage readers to do so. But there is something to be said about enjoying your life, especially while you are young. These metrics for success like wealth and stability mean nothing if they don’t serve to make us happier and more fulfilled.

Last month I splurged and went on an amazing vacation with some college buddies to Hawaii. It cost a lot of money but offered an experience that I simply can’t replace down the line. No matter how much I save, I’ll never have this time in my life again. If the purpose of my life were to cross an arbitrary finish line of success, this would have been a mistake.

But life isn’t about finding where to stop. It’s about finding the right direction to continue in. There is something to be said about what FIRE-devotees want to do with all that free time they worked so hard to get. The freedom that the FIRE movement promises is false, or at least, it is not what many expect to get when they choose to pursue it. Optimizing your life around something like retirement is something you choose at your own peril. Real freedom doesn’t just come from avoiding work. It comes from finding something worth devoting yourself to. That might be a career. It might be something else, like a passion or the pursuit of community and justice. Freedom isn’t the choice to do nothing. It’s the opportunity to work for something.