FIRE: What to do with your life after early retirement? How to avoid getting bored
On Reddit, a question once appeared: “What to do with your days once you’ve achieved FIRE (financial independence and early retirement)?” The person who asked it was nearing their goal, but a worry nagged at them: what if they ended up dying of boredom? The answers quickly poured in. Many mentioned their passions, personal projects, or activities they’d never had time to explore. Others talked about community involvement, volunteering, or doing good.
And then, there was one particularly interesting response. Its author mentioned Benjamin Franklin. After making his fortune through his printing business and retiring from it in his forties, Franklin could have comfortably enjoyed his wealth. Instead, he devoted his days to science, inventions, civic projects, and politics, becoming one of the most important figures in American history. Proof that after achieving FIRE, you can always find things to keep you busy… even if it means ending up as President of the United States!
But let’s come back to slightly more realistic perspectives. Today, I’m offering you the translation of an article found on Chinese social media. I hope this reflection inspires you.
Without financial pressure, without a job, without marriage or children, living at your own pace and doing whatever you want… do you inevitably end up letting yourself go?
I have a friend who quit his job three years ago.
Since then, he’s lived at his own pace. He doesn’t set an alarm, gets up whenever he feels like it, goes swimming in the afternoon, plays video games in the evening, and meets up with friends for meals or nights out on the weekend.
Three years ago, during a health check-up, he was diagnosed with mild fatty liver disease. At his check-up last year, it had completely disappeared.
And his mood?
His wife sums it up like this:
“When he worked, he looked like a ghost. Now he finally looks like someone who’s alive.”
You might think he’s let himself go.
Not at all.
But he almost did.
For the first six months after leaving his job, he lived without rhythm and without purpose. He’d get up around two in the afternoon, grab his phone, and scroll through videos until three in the morning. Then he’d do it all over again the next day.
Takeout containers piled up. He didn’t even bother opening the curtains. He had gained about ten kilos.
One day, he told me:
“I thought freedom meant being able to do whatever you wanted. In reality, I discovered I didn’t want to do anything.”
His wife finally lost patience:
“Either you find something that motivates you, or we’re getting a divorce.”
My friend is no artist. He can’t write novels, paint, or compose music.
But since high school, he’s been passionate about motorcycle mechanics.
So he bought a beat-up old Jialing for €100 and started fixing it up.
He took apart the engine, changed the carburetor, adjusted the valves. During the day, he tinkered in his garage; in the evening, he’d spend hours reading specialized forums.
Three months later, that old wreck ran like clockwork.
He then started repairing and modifying his friends’ motorcycles. Then he took orders on second-hand sales sites. Little by little, he made a name for himself among motorcycle enthusiasts in his area.
Today, he still doesn’t have a job in the traditional sense.
Yet every morning, he’s up at eight. He goes to his garage, works on his motorcycles, stops around three in the afternoon, then spends his evenings on forums and answering clients.
His life is even more structured than when he was an employee.
So, why didn’t he let himself go?
Because he found something to build.
(Of course, everything that follows assumes he has no financial difficulties. Without that condition, the question would be different.)
Many people think that not having a job inevitably leads to idleness and decline.
That’s a shortcut.
What ends up draining us from the inside isn’t necessarily the absence of work. It’s the feeling of no longer doing anything meaningful, of no longer moving forward, of no longer building anything.
The two situations can look similar from the outside, but they are very different.
Having a job means performing tasks defined by someone else in exchange for a salary.
Building something on your own means choosing your own goals, progressing at your own pace, and gaining a sense of accomplishment from your efforts.
Human beings need to feel that they are learning, moving forward, improving something, or leaving a mark.
It doesn’t have to be grand.
It doesn’t have to make money.
It doesn’t even need to be recognized by others.
But there must be a project, progression, something that gives direction to your days.
If you spend eight hours a day scrolling through videos, you’ll probably end up feeling empty.
But if you spend eight hours a day studying the naval battles of the Pacific during World War II, then organizing your research and writing notes, you’re not letting yourself wither away.
What’s the difference?
In one case, you consume without getting anything out of it.
In the other, your curiosity becomes knowledge, reflection, personal production.
That’s what makes the difference.
It’s an anchor point.
An anchor point is what turns a simple hobby into an activity that moves you forward.
Take the guitar.
Playing occasionally means strumming a few chords today, forgetting the instrument for a week, then picking it up one evening because the mood strikes you.
No goal. No continuity. No progression.
But you can also tell yourself:
“In six months, I want to know how to play this piece well enough to record it and post the video.”
From then on, you practice every day.
You work until your fingers are covered in calluses. You play so much that your loved ones start wondering if you’re redecorating the living room with guitar strums.
But you know where you’re going.
Every day, you get a little closer to the level you’ve set for yourself.
There’s your anchor point.
And once you’ve found an anchor point, you stop drifting.
Some will say:
“But I’m not particularly talented. I can’t write novels, I can’t paint, I can’t do scientific research. What could I possibly create?”
But this question already comes from a certain way of seeing the world: one that measures the value of an activity by the money it brings in.
Since childhood, we’ve been taught that a novel must be published, a painting must be sold, and research must lead to a scientific article.
If an activity earns nothing, it’s easy to consider it useless.
Yet this view is relatively recent.
It mainly took hold with industrial society and the modern organization of work.
For much of human history, people didn’t define themselves primarily by their job or by ‘going to work’ the way we do today.
Cao Cao, one of the most powerful men of the late Eastern Han dynasty, described his ideal life like this:
‘With each change of season, I will return to my homeland. I will build a peaceful residence east of Qiao district. In summer and autumn, I will read; in winter and spring, I will go hunting.’
In today’s language, that would roughly translate to:
‘I’ll go home, build a nice house, spend summer and autumn reading, then winter and spring hunting.’
Would you say he was letting himself go?
Of course not.
It’s not that he was incapable of working. He simply had the option to choose what to devote his time to.
He read, hunted, wrote poems, and composed texts before battles.
He continued to learn, create, and produce.
That’s why he never went out internally.
The history of Western science offers even more striking examples.
Take Newton.
He was a professor at Cambridge University, but teaching clearly wasn’t what interested him most. His lectures attracted few students.
What he actually devoted his time to was alchemy, optics, and his scientific work, including writing the Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy.
If judged solely on his teaching abilities, Newton might have seemed like an unremarkable professor.
But when you look at what he discovered and built, he changed our understanding of the universe.
Darwin is an even more telling example.
His father considered him good for nothing.
He had no serious interest in medicine or theology. He spent his time observing and collecting insects.
Then, after his voyage around the world, he spent twenty years at home working on On the Origin of Species.
Twenty years.
He lived at his own pace, went for walks in the afternoon, chatted with his wife in the evening, and devoted a few hours a day to his writing and research.
Today, some might look at his lifestyle and conclude he ‘wasn’t doing anything with his life.’
Yet he produced one of the most important works in the entire history of human thought.
So let’s return to the original question.
Does a person with no financial pressure, no job, no spouse or children, who lives at their own pace and does what they please, inevitably end up letting themselves go?
The answer is simple:
It all depends on what they do with their freedom.
If you live without an alarm clock, then spend three hours studying the peasant revolts of the late Ming dynasty, two hours organizing your sources and keeping a reading journal, before watching two documentaries in the evening, you’re not letting yourself wither away.
You might even be leading a richer, more stimulating life than an office worker who toils from nine in the morning to nine at night.
But if you get up whenever you feel like it, then spend the day scrolling on your phone until your eyes hurt, ordering takeout until you’re stuffed, and gaming until three in the morning, only to repeat it all the next day, then yes, you risk slowly emptying out.
And maybe even faster than someone who works.
Because you won’t even have that minimal constraint that forces you to go out, walk, meet people, or give your days structure.
Doing what you want isn’t the problem.
The real question is:
What do you actually want to do?
If nothing interests you, if you’ve lost all curiosity about the world, and if no activity makes you want to invest yourself seriously, then yes, you risk letting yourself wither away.
But that has nothing to do with whether or not you have a job.
You can just as easily burn out from the inside while working.
You can fade away in a meeting room, in front of your computer, in an open space, or at your desk, working overtime late into the night.
It’s just that this kind of exhaustion is less visible.
Work has never been a remedy in itself.
What keeps us going is having something to build, to learn, or to improve.
You may not go to the office, but you need an activity that gives direction to your days.
You may not work for someone else, but you need to feel that you’re making progress in something that matters to you.
You may not be an employee, but you need to be able to tell yourself:
“I’m doing something I care about, and I’m getting better and better at it.”
This thing doesn’t have to be huge.
It doesn’t have to change the world.
It doesn’t have to be in textbooks.
You can spend months exploring your kitchen, experimenting, and finally mastering twenty recipes that impress all your friends.
That’s already something.
You can be passionate about fishing, learn to choose the right bait based on the weather, currents, and species, and come back from each trip with a full basket.
That’s already something.
You can walk every street and alley in your neighborhood, draw a map by hand, and note down the best spots.
That’s already something.
These activities may not make you rich.
They may not make you famous.
They may never bring you viral success.
But they’ll give you a reason to get up in the morning.
And sometimes, that reason is worth far more than any job.
