Yet going on the FIRE or fatFIRE (financial independence, retire early) forums you encounter countless examples of people who achieve early retirement and lose their minds. They’re bored because they worked so hard and no longer know what to do with themselves. They didn’t spend any time developing other interests or hobbies because they were engrossed in chasing the paycheck. Some are so engrossed in chasing the money that they don’t even stop to consider what they MIGHT do if they retire early.

I think that might be confirmation bias. The people who happily retire and have the freedom to do whatever they want are less likely to talk about it on a forum; they'll just go live their lives. Conversely, if a person banks all of their happiness on retiring early and then is unhappy they are more likely to talk about it on a forum. It's a similar phenomenon to the prevalence of negative reviews outweighing positive reviews.

I rarely seem to see that on the FIRE forums. It seems like 99% of people on those forums are trying to achieve FIRE, and very little discussion about those who have.

Having spent much time there I've encountered plenty of people who haven't been bored in retirement.

That's the beauty of being FI anyways, if you want to work then work. If you don't want to work then don't work. Simple as that.

Here's an option: keep working, but without any of the stress associated with needing to work.

This isn't rocket science, workaholics.

When you have been indocrinated your whole life that work is what defines you "Hi, this is John, he's a software engineer/banker/barista/etc", it's difficult to let go.

My wife once talked to an elderly lady that was working in her 80s because she said she had nothing to do, as she had worked all her life in multiple jobs.

I guess imagination gets eroded when you are conditioned to be a wage slave for too long.

My 82-year old relative is like this. She's so accustomed to working hard all her life that even when she could retire easily on alimony and pension, she's so wired to work hard in blue-collar work. She works at a natural foods store and is such a superstar she got some kind of regional (like multi-state US) employee year award. That's what makes her happy. She genuinely likes to serve other people, too. Definitely not my thing but I have infinite respect for it. All about that eudaimonia.

Edit: all the constant activity (always had hobbies on the side too) has kept her in good physical shape plus decent diet and she's Japanese. Definite oba-tank who will probably soldier on well past 100.