That's stupid. I am not willing to suffer for 20 years to then enjoy the remaining 30-40 whatever there will be. You don't know how long you will live, and what is your old days worth if you broken in your youth trying to be safe when you are 50? I'd rather work, as some do, 3-4 hours every single day for the rest of my life, than 12 hour days for 10 years and then compensate my lost youth, health and relationships with yachts or whatever money could buy.

That is what socialism->communism was about in my country. We have to suffer just a little more and then we'll get there. Guess what. We never got there.

To be honest, this is a first world problem. Most people on Earth (and honestly, at least the in US, the majority of people http://money.cnn.com/2010/01/05/news/economy/job_satisfactio...) work at a job they hate because they feel they have to for whatever reason be it survival or their kids or their bills, etc.

My job is easy (for me), requires little from me and very occasionally is worth getting out of bed for. I'm probably one of the lowest paid people here. But, I take lunch when I want, I wear what I want, I have a situation that is somewhat flexible (not because the employer wants it to be and actively dissuades it, but because my co-worker and I will mutually look out for and cover for each other). The benefits are bad. Treatment by management ranges from indifference to overtly hostile for the most part.

I'm not a programmer and would put myself somewhere in the middle satisfaction wise. The money sucks but I've had worse jobs and the time off (2 months a year), while unpaid, is great.

$.02, my ultimate point was not worrying where your next meal is coming from is a luxury most people don't have - so worrying that you're not doing something fulfilling becomes a secondary concern at best.

>>You don't know how long you will live

Going by the trends you will likely live long.

>>and what is your old days worth if you broken in your youth trying to be safe when you are 50?

Far more worth than being 50, out of cash or very little of it, competing with a impossibly competitive new generation. Living in perennial fear of layoffs, making ends meet and having a roof above your head. All the while watching your peers who made sound investments already retire and having a gala time now.

>>I'd rather work, as some do, 3-4 hours every single day for the rest of my life, than 12 hour days for 10 years and then compensate my lost youth, health and relationships with yachts or whatever money could buy.

Retirement has rarely meant turning into a vegetable these days. Retirement only means financial freedom to do what you want. Imagine how valuable your relationships will be when you spend quality time with your friends and family, instead of running into old age expecting help from everyone starting from family, friends to government.

>>That is what socialism->communism was about in my country. We have to suffer just a little more and then we'll get there. Guess what. We never got there.

As a Indian who lived through socialism I can tell scores of people 'got there'.

Well, I'm sure you make some "enjoy the present" vs. "enjoy the future" tradeoffs (e.g. safe sex, hopefully). This trade-off will simply be different for each person. In any case, the author wasn't very clear on this, but it's not necessary that his sister (a manager) actually worked more; plenty of programmers work a lot as well (overnight support, weekend work, "we have a deadline next month" sprints, ...).

"I am not willing to suffer for 20 years to then enjoy the remaining 30-40 whatever there will be."

I know people who suffered for many years, retired and then died within a couple of years. Don't be so sure you will live 30-40 years after retirement. You can never tell.

Retiring at 6 years old?

Retire after 10x shorter career..

My dad never really retired, but lets just say he got extremely picky about the contracts he picked up and the people he would work with. Being able to do what you want, rather than what you need to do to survive, is pretty nice.

Kudos to your dad. That's what I try to do, but my skills to say no are not very polished yet..

When one retires, there are lots of more interesting things to do with your life than spending the remaining days of your life in front of a computer screen.

Like what? The more I know about things outside programming, the more I see how interesting it is and how much boring, repeating stuff you have to go through to have fun in other parts of life.

And you never have to do anything boring or repetitive as a programmer. Sure we can automate a lot of things away once we know how to do them. But the task of staying up to date or learning in the first place involves a ton of repetition. And then there's the repeated task of learning when you get to a new project with a new language and new hardware.

Of course, you could just be repeatedly implementing the same thing with slight variations for years so minimal repetition in learning but maximal repetition in doing.

Designing board games. But the pay is nowhere near as good as programming.

Sailing!

Everybody gets to decide for him or her self what is considered interesting.

your first inference is incorrect.

Lifetime earning potential is almost never linear.