I retired early this year. My advice to anyone seeking to do so is think clearly about it. Because once you do it, you can never go back to that world. The world of waking up early, having a boss tell you what to do, going to meetings that mean absolutely nothing, running on that hamster wheel, seems so trite and meaningless afterwards. That's a good thing, but you can never go back. Then it becomes time to concentrate on what life is really about- your health, your relationships, having fun and discovering what life is like without that tether on your ankle. Everyone isn't cut out for that, some need that hamster wheel. The best people are cut out for it. :)
Could you share more details about your job, if you don’t mind?
I posted in a comment in this thread, but I changed 3 jobs in 4 years (a mix of FAANG and startups) and each one has been more miserable than the previous, so I can definitely relate with the previous poster.
So I am wondering what kind of “normal job” people have that is so good that they’d do it for free.
I train and optimize large AI models for a small startup (50 people). I report to CTO (a cofounder), who's a very smart and reasonable guy. I have two group meetings a week, and occasional ad-hoc calls with my teammates. My teammates are great guys with similar backgrounds to mine (phds from top schools, in their late 30s/early 40s). I work remotely since 2010, never worked for a big company, changed a few startups in the last decade. My salary is 250k, but I used to make double that - I downshifted a couple years ago. Currently I'm enjoying 4 hour days on average: sometimes I wake up and don't feel like working at all, sometimes I want to get something done and I work for 8 hours straight, but it's rare. No one cares as long as I deliver good results, and I usually do (I have lots of experience in my field). Over the years I managed to save for a couple of real estate properties, and I got a bit of stocks (hand-picked). I could probably retire tomorrow, but I'm pretty sure I'd miss working. You could say I'm the opposite of being burnt out, perhaps I'm too relaxed, and I should be more ambitious, but I got three kids, so they keep me busy.
Not OP. Just optimize for happiness instead of money. I earn ten times less now than I used to. I work half the time and am twice as happy.
(I work for a small local business in Eastern Europe, ten(ish) people, we don't earn much, but get a lot of freedom and the atmosphere at work is very nice)
What if you literally can’t think of a work position that would make you happy? Just talking out loud and not expecting an answer from you, but that’s just what was going on in my head while reading your comment.
Perhaps I am too burned out, but I couldn’t imagine feeling happy working with a team, an manager and hard problems.
Probably my “happy” job would consist in full agency with no managers, no peers to veto or judge or comment or compete on/with my work, extremely low intellectual requirements, part-time time commitment at best, and wages good enough to still make it objectively worth my time compared to my portfolio (shared a lot more context in another comment on this thread).
I understand all this might be a tad unrealistic, so just venting.
