You can't just say "Oh boy am I an introvert." and just leave it at that.
Some people are extroverted picking their nose. Let me explain what I mean. That means they do it in front of others and don't give a fuck, or they might apologise when they get called out, and just do it all over again next minute. That's me. Other people are introverted picking their nose. They go away in private and they go ahead and pick their nose now that nobody is around. They're not necessarily in denial about it, and sometimes you can get them on the topic and compare notes. That's my wife.
Personally, programming computers is one of my favorite things to do, so I'm with you on wanting to keep doing it.
It's just the part where you have to do 2000 hours of it each year for somebody else that I never got along with, so I spent the first 20 years of my career making sure I didn't need to do that.
I "retired" in my 30s from fulltime jobs, and focused on building SaaS products and contracting. That left me not really needing to work at all anymore somewhere in my 40s, though I kept at it a while after that since the companies I was working with were full of fun people.
Now, I dip in and out as I like, picking up the odd contract but mostly doing my own thing. I've been proper, capital R, Retired for the last few years, building a game to keep the brain fed and the skills up.
With luck, I'll also write some code on my dying day. But it'll be on my terms.
I retired at 59 about 2 years ago. My career was coding and product development, I put together some ideas about what I’d code after I left the workplace.
To my surprise, I haven’t missed it at all. Playing music, reading for pleasure and language studies ( to help with a part time volunteer gig ) have totally met my needs. You never know.
Retirement doesn't mean you can't work. It means you don't have to. It means you can work for yourself on your own interests instead of for some other boss who tells you what to do.
Why not find a career and job that's enjoyable now without even having to defer all of this for later? Not just in software, but you could be flying planes, be in a travelling circus, learn to be a chef, etc.
If the answer is you have too many commitments keeping you tied to your current job, then I'd argue that we should be optimising for that optionality rather than some arbitrary day to end the nightmare 40 years from now
I don't want to fly planes, be in a traveling circus, or be a chef. There are things I want to do, but the money spigots of our society aren't lining up to pay me to do them. I'm all for obtaining optionality through universal income. But optionality means also the optionality to retire (today, not decades from now).
The point being a pilot or chef pays back enough to e.g. raise kids and pay for all your debt getting there is years out. You may need to FIRE first to get to do alternative careers.
If you have no dependents then yeah do anything even just travel the world and do but of work here and there to keep going.
Honestly, I can't pick a better job for myself than the one I have now; my bills get paid, I help my community, the day-to-day is interesting and rewarding. But I'd rather have 100% of my time to myself. I can claim my pension from the state at 55, and I fully intend to.
Used to think the same when joining the field and now I despise every minute I have to work on software I don't care about. AI even made it worse as I joined the field due to liking the coding part, not the results. Well, there isn't really an alternative for me either as there are basically no jobs I could learn that pay equally well...
Hopefully you can retire early and then work on software you do like!! All those glorious ideas you had... but didn't have the time for. But be careful on the retirement part, the numbers go out the window (Andersen not Microsoft) when inflation bites :-(
Do numbers go completely out the window due to inflation?
While the price of gas, real-estate, groceries doubled or tripled over the last 10-15 years (here in NL).
It also seems that Stocks/ETFs also did the same, right?
Some of the Tech/IT/AI (and hence to some extent also S&P500 that's heavy on those) increased even more. But even if we consider it an artificial bubble - loads of other more traditional industries/ETFs also grew similarly to inflation, didn't they?
You are right of course.... but one's risk tolerance diminishes with waning work income. So retired folks have less of their money in stocks/ETFs and are more exposed to the ravages of inflation.
So with hindsight, one can easily weather inflation... only hindsight is hard to come by (says the guy who cancelled his NVIDIA buy order a few years back)!
I wont be able to retire early with a measly 2.5k net wage in Germany. Still, job market is dead here. Its all Java and basically zero interesting projects. I appreciate the kind words though!
I am constantly thinking about it, trust me. The issue is I already earn below median wage, but just enough to live comfortably. Other jobs would likely make me go back into poverty or make me hate my life even more.
Oh, thank you, what a lovely choice of text. I wonder if your parents meant for you to read it?
My sister mentioned to me recently she has a print of Wild Geese by Mary Oliver on the back of her bathroom door. Your quotation made me think of her poem.
I won’t claim to have any qualifications but generally the more I look after myself the better I sleep. The better I sleep the more I can look after myself.
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