> One can lead a meaningful, enjoyable life while also considering their finances.
This is where I disagree. I think there's a certain amount of naivety required to pursue meaningful things. There's so much in life that makes no financial sense that creates meaning. The moment you start having to think sensibly from a financial perspective, is when so many of these things no longer make sense.
Once you're plugged into the system there's almost no turning back.
> Since so many things make no sense from a financial point of view, the only sensible strategy is to break free of the financial constraints as soon as possible. Money cannot buy you happiness, but it can buy you the freedom to pursue it.
So I think the reason why this doesn't make sense (in my mind) is because in a state of retirement i.e. financial independence, you're still just as conscious of money as you were when you were accumulating wealth. You still need to manage money no different to when you were accumulating, it's just now you're not earning.
To me the freedom I'm referring to is similar to that of childhood - where you're not worried/concerned about "the system". You're just doing your own thing in your own world. That kind of purity no amount of money can resolve, even in an early retirement scenario.
The other issue is that a lot of stuff only makes sense when you're younger. Like it's a lot difficult for example to become a travelling musician or even to travel etc.
Now of course, early retirement provides it's own kind of freedom. But I would say that it's not equivalent to the kind of "freedom" that I'm referring to, which is basically being carefree.
> To me the freedom I'm referring to is similar to that of childhood - where you're not worried/concerned about "the system". You're just doing your own thing in your own world. That kind of purity no amount of money can resolve, even in an early retirement scenario.
The only ways you can live as an adult unconcerned about the system is 1. if you actually have a substantial financial backstop (trust fund, wealthy parents, etc.) and just pretend you don't, or 2. if you don't have a financial backstop, at which point "doing your own thing in the world" just means being a vagrant, drifter or bum.
Oh, the FIRE community. If you trained yourself to live looking at the money you need to save to retire, your brain will most likely be wired to that behavior, and breaking free from that will be utterly difficult. On top of that, people with the FIRE mindset have probably by default already a strong (innate? taught?) bias towards enjoying optimizing their life and making it the end goal.
> Oh, the FIRE community.
I think you may be confused, I'm not part of the FIRE community. I'm only taking the statement that "doing meaningful things is not financially sensible" to its logical conclusion, not endorsing any position.
> If you trained yourself to live looking at the money you need to save to retire, your brain will most likely be wired to that behavior, and breaking free from that will be utterly difficult. On top of that, people with the FIRE mindset have probably by default already a strong (innate? taught?) bias towards enjoying optimizing their life and making it the end goal.
So many assumptions and claims without any supporting evidence:
- "FIRE people" train themselves to live looking at money only.
- This wires their brain to that behaviour (left unclear what this actually means in terms of concrete behaviour).
- Breaking free from this behaviour is difficult.
- People with this mindset have a bias towards enjoying optimizing their life, to the point this is their end goal.
- (Implied) This makes their life some combination of sad/bad/meaningless.
I don't really want to even argue against this because the burden of proof for providing any supporting evidence is yours, not mine. I'm not particularly interested in constructing some overarching psychoanalytic theories for a large category of people who I've never even interacted with, but you do you.
> There's so much in life that makes no financial sense that creates meaning. The moment you start having to think sensibly from a financial perspective, is when so many of these things no longer make sense.
I get the sentiment, but it implies the opposite of your conclusion.
Since so many things make no sense from a financial point of view, the only sensible strategy is to break free of the financial constraints as soon as possible. Money cannot buy you happiness, but it can buy you the freedom to pursue it.
Retire early to give yourself the best cushion (and best possible chance) to pursue meaningful things, without the everlooming sword of making ends meet. The added benefit of life experience to filter out pursuits that only look meaningful on the surface, is a nice side-effect of this strategy.