Anyway, this might sound like heresy on this board, but what about work as a necessary and fulfilling part of being?
Work can be healthy, even if it's just in the Old-Testament sweat-of-the-brow sense. Paid work is even better. But self-directed work is the best of all.
I think the difference is when a job turns into an occupation instead of an avocation. When it destroys a person's work/life balance. I work my assets off around our house and our rental property, and at our taekwondo dojang, but I have much more control over the timing and the amount of the effort. And when I get tired of it, I can stop doing it and either hire it out or dispose of the burden. No deadline stress, and almost everything gets completed eventually.
We've always told our kid that we hope she finds her avocation and will enjoy it for the rest of her life. We also tell her that the sooner she's financially independent, the sooner she'll be able to see if, like us, ER is her avocation.
I've heard you say words to the effect that growing up, all you wanted to be was a Navy submariner. Wouldn't you say
that achieving that goal was a helpful for your self-actualization? Was all that time you spent doing a job you were passionate about just a "fog"?
My father & grandfather are/were electrical engineers, and my father sold nuclear plants, so it's not as if I ever had a chance. I'm well aware of the "fog of work" around submarining, having gone through 15 months of intensive schooling and another six months of onboard effort just to start standing watch. (Some parts were more passionate than others.) I didn't qualify in submarines until nearly three years after I'd left USNA. When I pinned on gold dolphins, it was a massive dose of self-actualization. It was also like the dog catching the car-- now what?
Well, taking the Navy's nuclear engineering exam, of course. And qualifying for command. And paying back all that effort invested in training me by contributing to the crew and training more young officers. And later on doing everything else that steely-eyed killers of the deep can do.
For me, the part where the "fog of work" wrapped itself most tightly around my head was when my spouse started a family as I was working 60-hour weeks on call (with bad bosses) at a submarine operations command. It was clear that my immediate chain of command regarded family as an unpleasant conflict with work. The passion stopped about then. I was overwhelmed, chronically fatigued, and incredibly frustrated. During the two years that I struggled at the command, I was surrounded by at least a half-dozen Navy Reserve officers who'd arrive on temporary orders to help us out. Several of them were shipmates. My spouse had a similar environment at her command, and her own group of Reserve officers. Yet for some reason, it never occurred to either one of us that we could punch out and downshift. We were just too darn busy and tired to see that we could solve most of our problems by going into the Reserves. I stuck it out all the way to retirement and she lasted another seven years before she finally went into the Reserves.
I'd say that people who are passionate about their work have no reason to pursue ER. Financial independence, sure, everybody should pursue FI. But when the fog of work is making you so miserable that you can't even see a path to FI, let alone ER, then it's time to disrupt the status quo. And if you're FI but afraid of what will happen to you in ER-- all I can recommend is a sabbatical to give you a chance to live the lifestyle. "What will I do all day?!?" is one of the top three worries of ER, but as soon as they start living it every ER wonders what the heck they were worrying about.
Dory36 also used to point out another aspect of work, even if it was an avocation. When you were working while holding the FI bucket in one hand and the BS bucket in the other, if the FI bucket was full then the BS bucket started filling much more quickly. Which one is your left bucket?
But how do I deal with the slimy smelly wriggling fish if I catch one?
The fresh ones don't smell.
And poke (pronounced poe-kay) is yummy!
, so my wrist intensive activities are limited. I have to pick and choose very carefully.
