I also joke about wanting to do nothing for a year. About 2-3 weeks in I'm ready to take on a full workload again. I once was unemployed for 2 months, I thought it'd be a vacation. I hated it after the first month.
Now I have a better nest egg, but I also know my tastes mean I can't retire.
Who said anything about happiness. We are mixing two different things 'retirement' and 'happiness'. Happiness is an emotional state, and Retirement is a financial state. Happiness/Sadness can apply to any situation. It has nothing to do with wealth or financial independence.
Retirement is about having enough to not worry about being in need of a job to just keep your head above water.
Retirement is just worth the independence and availability of options.
you figured out the meaning of life for everyone?
maybe you are rationalizing your own lack of freedom from work and responsibility as "serving others" and secret to happiness. Which is fine but its a bit weird to say that applies to everyone and ppl who aren't doing have just not made that "transition" to a life of meaning.
I am glad You figured out formula of happiness for your life don't you think everyone else has the same freedom to figure out their own path and formula. Why do you think everyone should follow your universal formula.
While retirement is cool, I think life goes better without thinking too much about it. Try to work at a job that doesn't suck ass, try to have hobbies and free time, focus on family etc, invest your savings, don't buy stupid stuff. The level of financial freedom will increase in your life just automatically if you live rationally.
I've been trying to do that since I entered the workforce. I still haven't found it.
Now, I work much harder, have kids, and responsibilities. That being said, I know the work I do is meaningful, and serves many people. We have significant savings. Though living in a big city means we can't retire early. That's beside the point though: I motivate myself to work because it is meaningful. The same with kids: I don't do things because I enjoy them, I do them in the service of my kids and my family. Reading the story in the OP, I get the sense that the OP hasn't made that transition to thinking about work in terms of serving others. A happy life is not a life of retirement, its a life of meaning. What was meaningful once (aiming for retirement), loses its meaning once it has been attained. You have to keep moving forward. This is not about "Keeping Up," but about stepping outside of oneself, and learning to put others ahead, even if it requires personal suffering. (Something parents of young children know very well.)