Live in a country with a decent amount of vacation days.

Don’t wait until retirement. Balance your life now. It’s going to be a long slog.

You don’t need to find an amazing career that you’ll love doing until you die. People who get that are extremely lucky, and it’s not the norm. You just need a job that will support you while still giving you time to do the things you enjoy.

Follow this: https://youtu.be/YHxwY3Fz2gU?feature=shared

Live with underlying existential dread for decades. Watch as “doing what you love” becomes “hating what you used to love because you’re forced to do it so that there’s enough numbers in the computer to prove that you’re worthy of continued existence.” Contemplate the pointlessness of it all on a daily basis. Be reminded that your feelings are invalid because “other people have it worse” every time the topic comes up. Nod listlessly as “successful” people tout their own hard work while ignoring any factor luck and privilege played, then tune out when they shift into the dissonant duet of “I succeeded because I am exceptional” and “anyone can do the same if they just work harder.”

Wake up the next morning and realize there’s roughly 30 more years of this, barring a massive coronary or aneurism or something.

I dealt with it by choosing to not have kids years ago. I didn’t ask to be born, and I refuse to force that on anyone else.

Once things become too difficult, I’m pulling my own plug.

Don’t hold on to things you haven’t done before you retire… It is a waste of time and regretting not doing stuff, which lasts for moments, is the folly of youth.

Also what/who you want to do changes as you get older…

/sauce greybeard who is 10 years off retirement.

Here’s a hot take. Do what you want when you are young. Find a way. I spent my 20’s moving around, having shitty but fun jobs. I travelled. Saw all kinds of places and met all sorts of people. It wasn’t easy and sometimes it wasn’t fun. I found myself homeless even several times. I still wouldn’t change any of it. I found a wonderful partner and we moved together for a while before settling and having kids.

In my early 40s I was diagnosed with a really rare cancer that paralyzed me from the chest down for a year prior to surgery and left lasting disabilities following. Now in my 50’s with declining health I am so glad I lived. It means I don’t have a lot of things others have but I’ve never cared much for the Jones’ anyway. If Cancer taught me anything it’s fuck society and their expectations. Do you. Find a way. Be happy.

The alternative is much worse. I don’t want to be poor and/or homeless. I want to be able to take vacations and not worry about surprise expenses. I want to actually be able to retire someday.

The alternative is a much harder life to live, in my opinion. For me, giving up 40ish hours a week for the peace of mind it worth it. Yes, work is not how I’d prefer to spend my time, but it allows me to spend the rest of my time doing as I’d please.

A pivotal piece of advice once shifted my perspective on work. It was put simply: ‘If the thought of retirement is your main motivation, you might be in the wrong job.’ This implies that if you’re constantly counting down the years to retirement, you’re essentially wishing for time to fly by quicker. But those years are valuable, and letting them slip away in anticipation of something else isn’t worth it. The key is to find a career that reduces your stress and enhances your life now, not just in the future. While financial security is undeniably important, it’s also crucial to recognize when you have enough and to prioritize your well-being and happiness in the present.

Plan the things you want to do into your life. Drop the notion “when I retire I will…” If you can fit the stuff you want to do into your Annual Leave then that’s a big win. If not then you’ll need unpaid leave. One good time is between jobs.

I’ve pretty consistently chosen less hours and better working conditions over pay since I started to have that choice. It’s made it a lot more tolerable. I’m currently on a four day week, with a minimal commute, good perks and a relatively stress free job that I took a pay cut for. My retirement savings look pretty slim, but due to my health the chance of a long one isn’t much higher anyway.

Not without it’s issues. Pay is pretty significantly below the median. Fortunately I’m not interested in having kids and I’m content living cheaply, even if it sounds boring. But I’m in a weird dead zone for government support; for instance - if I earned more, there are programs for “middle income” housing and the like that I earn too little to qualify for. Low income housing programs are a joke - with wait times being as much as a decade -but even if it wasn’t I’m not high priority anyway. Also no way on earth I’m ever getting a home loan, even though mortgage repayments would be less than rent and I could conceivably make the deposit.

Was just talking about how difficult work is going to make the next three days, so that I can’t wait until they’re over, but that’s another week of my life where I’m wishing for days to pass so I can try to be happy again. Lame. Lame as fuck.

I slack. Oh boy do I slack. I’d work so harder if I thought I would actually get something for it. In fact, when I started my latest job, I was doing just that, because it seemed this company was different, and it’s something I’m naturally good at. Got commended by my boss about how much I was doing, how quickly I was learning, how in a year I had already surpassed the next most recent hire that had been there for 2 years… Then time came for my review, and it was a “meets expectations”. Like wtf do I have to do to exceed expectations? Then not long after, they started denying me time off, saying I had taken too much. Supposedly we had unlimited PTO, of which I had taken 2 weeks so far that year (1 week in March, the rest just single days here and there), and my request was for a week in July… Anywho long story short, I’ve pretty much figured out exactly how much I have to fake being busy to not get negative attention, and I do that. I milk cases for all they’re worth. And I’m still getting more done than half my colleagues. I hate it, but it pays decently, so I have a hard time throwing it away for something that might be more fulfilling, but doesn’t pay as well…

Trying to out-earn my age. Can you guess how that’s going so far? :/

Eventually you get to the point where you age-out of joy. I mean, sure, you try to throw yourself into your work, try to squeeze some semblance of satisfaction out of that dried raisin of a career. But it’s never the same as it used to be. It’s hollow, just like you, and you hate all of it. But what else are you gonna do? So you do your time and go home and stare at the wall; you have no desire to watch tv because it’s all the same bullshit you’ve seen for years. When you do watch tv, usually with your spouse who is little more than a grumpy roommate now. The tv screen is transparent, and you see nothing but the studs in the wall. The family mills about, completely clueless to the misery you are living. Sure you laugh, but it’s without the twinkle in your eye that you once had. You tend to spend a lot more time in the bathroom staring at yourself in the mirror, telling yourself you want to blow your brains out, but never do. Sometimes you cry in isolation. Most of the time you are numb and you sit there in silence. Otherwise, you pretend to do stuff until nightfall. Finally. You down some sleeping pills, go to bed early, doom-scroll for a few hours until the meds kick in. Lights out. You wake a few hours later, before the rest of the fucking world it seems, muttering the word “fuck”. Not with the frolicking fun connotation of youth, but in utter despair that you awoke at all. Again. So you drag yourself to that mirror, brushing your teeth, put on that hollow smile and start the day over. repeat. And again. And again.

I’m sorry, what was the question?

Existential dread. I am not here to be a wage slave but I can’t figure out how to get out. I just drink a lot