Loving your job = FI?

[liberty]

Let's say you have a job that you love - a job they would do even if they were able to live off your passive income. Aren't you then FI already? The job is then not really a job, so you won't really work anymore, you are kind of retired even with the job. The fastest way to FI is maybe to find a job you love, so that you won't need to work any more days of your life?

Or maybe I'm pushing the definition of FI a bit too far here? We could put it this way instead: You don't need FI if you love your job. Then you are already a free bitch, and live exactly the same life as you would have done if you were FI.

[AxelHeyst]

FI = you are independent of the need to earn any more money. I think you certainly can be FI while full time employed, it just means you don't *need* the work.

There's maybe an argument that loving your job = RE, because it's something you'd do anyway.

We could put it this way instead: You don't need FI if you love your job.

Nah, because FI implies a level of financial security that 'a job' does not. You can get fired from a job you love, or the economy can tank and the job can go away...

None of which is as argument to NOT find a job you love. Just don't think it's something it's not.

[Dream of Freedom]

The fastest way to FI is maybe to find a job you love, so that you won't need to work any more days of your life?

If you can pull it off do it. It is easier said than done though. It assumes that you like the tasks you are given, like your coworkers, are challenged enough not to get bored, and have a personality that fits the corporate environment.

[liberty]

Nah, because FI implies a level of financial security that 'a job' does not. You can get fired from a job you love, or the economy can tank and the job can go away...

Fair point. There are certain jobs you can't get fired from, though, for example public sector worker in a country with strong worker-protection. (Unless you do a very bad job, but that's unlikely if you love the job).

[jacob]

The fastest way to FI is maybe to find a job you love, so that you won't need to work any more days of your life?

This is the old "all you gotta do is just to make money on something you're passionate about"-argument. There's a bunch of things that doesn't make this solution as robust as FI. You're more likely to lose your passion for that particular job than your savings. If you turn your passion into a job, the imposed external reward system will reduce your internal motivation (at least according to science). Jobs tend not to be all positives, so your passion may be associated with certain negatives (meetings, for example) which again trains you (classical conditioning) to like it less. Your passion might change. Twenty years ago I made the exact argument that all I needed for eternal happiness was a computer and the ability to simulate astrophysical sites. Over the next 5 years I just lost interest.

[OutOfTheBlue]

The quote “If you find a job you love, you’ll never work again..." by Winston Churchill comes to mind here.

Maybe, depending on personal idiosyncrasy, but I think there are just too many stars that need to be aligned for that to happen. Too many stars outside one's control, that is. Tightly coupled is hardly independent in my book. I'd say independence comes from having brought a lot more control onto oneself (by decoupling from consumer patterns and having enough money and skills to handle the life adventure in your own terms).

I don't have salaryman dreams any more and refuse to tie my identity to a profession/job or a possibly religious work ethic.

The chapter "For Love or Money: Valuing Your Life Energy" from Your Money Or Your Life is also relevant here.

The job that I love cannot have a boss. Its job description cannot be imposed by someone else. It is free from such external contingencies.

The job that I love is a game called living.

Now, if the bosses of the world will excuse me, I've got some work to do…

[chenda]

Only a minority of people have such a passion and vocation to make this work. If you do then you are lucky.

[7Wannabe5]

OTOH, it’s very hard to feel fulfilled over the long run without some sort of meaningful work (as opposed to job)in your life. So, even if you are FI, you can’t escape that. And if you are doing work in the presence of others who have money then if they find your work valuable, money will likely flow in your direction. So, on some level, it’s kind of just like FI gives you the freedom to not interact with other humans or to do work that could only possibly be of value to you.

[George the original one]

Let's say you have a job that you love - a job they would do even if they were able to live off your passive income. Aren't you then FI already?

Just because you love a job doesn't mean the job is always there to provide the income you need.

[Slevin]

OTOH, it’s very hard to feel fulfilled over the long run without some sort of meaningful work (as opposed to job)in your life. So, even if you are FI, you can’t escape that. And if you are doing work in the presence of others who have money then if they find your work valuable, money will likely flow in your direction. So, on some level, it’s kind of just like FI gives you the freedom to not interact with other humans or to do work that could only possibly be of value to you.

Agreed. I see FI (and any money work in general) as means to the end "do whatever feels meaningful to me and the world" regardless of pay / re-skilling + re-training, and other factors that make it hard to align what you are currently interested in and want to do with what you eat from.

as George points out above, "loving your job" is insufficient in that it actually needs to be "loving your job that makes more money than you need" and "loving your job that makes more money than you need" seems to be a target too heavily weighted on many other factors that others are mentioning, and can be a switch flipped at any minute to external circumstances (company buyout, pay cuts, lack of interesting work this quarter, needing to move, housing prices increase more than wages, etc) and internal circumstances (losing interest, having a child, reading a book that changes your value system), making the system of "loving your job that makes more money than you need" inherently extremely brittle and almost guaranteed to fail in the medium to long term as both the individual and the job are distinct dynamically changing objects that will each shift in many dimensions as time moves forwards.

[liberty]

The job that I love cannot have a boss. Its job description cannot be imposed by someone else. It is free from such external contingencies.

The same goes for me. In order to love a job, I would need to have the control myself: No reporting to bosses, no alarm clock at 07:30, no pressure.

[chenda]

I would be interested to know how 'trust fund babies' (I don't mean that it a disparaging way) spend their time. I knew one such person who was clearly from a wealthy family, he worked part time at a gym whilst driving a Mercedes and then later became an airline pilot for fun. Nice guy. I suspect the Paris Hilton coke head stereotype is far from the norm.

Independent means used to be much more common. I have a superb travel guidebook written by a Vicar from the 1920s which casually says that 'anyone with a small, fixed income can travel all the time' and then swiftly goes on to the important stuff like how to deal with the natives in the colonies and what colour your hat should be. It was taken for granted that anyone travelling back then would have some private income, and he urges his young male audience to enjoy a life of leisurely travel and contemplation.

[Tyler9000]

Let's say you have a job that you love - a job they would do even if they were able to live off your passive income. Aren't you then FI already? The job is then not really a job, so you won't really work anymore, you are kind of retired even with the job.

Loving your job just means you're happy at work. That's a great place to be, but it's completely different than FI. Even in the most desirable workplace, you're not truly independent until you're able to say "no" without worry.

As a guy who truly loved what I used to do full-time and couldn't imagine doing anything else, trust me. Companies turn over, people change, and burnout is real. Even if you love your job today, don't settle. Think of it as a prime opportunity to follow the happy path to financial independence and take charge of your future happiness as well.

[zbigi]

Independent means used to be much more common. I have a superb travel guidebook written by a Vicar from the 1920s which casually says that 'anyone with a small, fixed income can travel all the time' and then swiftly goes on to the important stuff like how to deal with the natives in the colonies and what colour your hat should be. It was taken for granted that anyone travelling back then would have some private income, and he urges his young male audience to enjoy a life of leisurely travel and contemplation.

I suspect most of those on fixed income in 1920 were the descendants of landed gentry (obv. depends on the country) whose families lived off the estate for centuries. I'm not sure if they were more common than the wealthy class of today.

BTW some of my friends had a contact with children of the leisure class. The people I've heard of, don't want to do just lounge about 24/7. They want to give some direction to their life - but seem to want to do this "on their own terms", i.e. without too much effort. One example is a French princess who's hanging out in Brooklyn in an art collective, doing some obscure low/no-skill political art. Another one, in Warsaw, is slowly training to become a psychotherapist to help LGBTQ+ people.

[guitarplayer]

OTOH, it’s very hard to feel fulfilled over the long run without some sort of meaningful work (as opposed to job)in your life.

Yep, we make it a point in the mission statement of where I work. In some way, my place is an FI lab. Every resident here is FI in the sense that they never worry about money. Obviously this is not so, because for an average observer there are all people on benefits. But then, all their basic needs are met here, and the vast majority does not grasp the concept of money in any way other than a totemic 'give-coin-get-magazine/sweetie' sort of way.

Still, bread we get in the house is baked by a baker with their help; logs that we use to make a fire are chopped with their help. A few talk about 'getting retired from workshops' (they are in their late 40s or 50s), but majority is going strong in attending workshops. Mostly for pride of producing and social interaction.

It can be quite a bit of work to arrange meaningful work opportunities for people who independently don't know how to do it. I wonder if arranging meaningful work opportunities is going to become a growing field of human pursuit.

Or otherwise just provide drugs and computer games, like Harari pointed out.

[chenda]

@zbigi - Yes although I think it was not uncommon for upper middle class types. If you read Patricia Highsmith novels for example (often set in post-war America) a lot of characters had private income. Thomas Piketty in Capital talks about how historically capital outperformed labour in terms of income, hence the historic obsession with inheritance in things like Jane Austen novels.

[chenda]

They want to give some direction to their life - but seem to want to do this "on their own terms", i.e. without too much effort.

Yeah that makes sense. On the other hand, most of the greatest thinkers in history were probably living off their slaves or servants and hence had the leisure to ponder deep philosophical or scientific questions. No need to worry about research grants, career progression or any of that nonsense.

[chenda]

If you can only work a small number of hours a year then the nature of the job probably matters much less. A freelance lawyer, for example, could work say 100 hours a year of mostly flexible work and earn $20 000 a year. It might be boring stuff like contract review but who cares when you're only working a few hours a week on average ? It would be such a small part of your life it wouldn't be much different than managing a portfolio. This is sort of what I have done, although I earn a lot less per hour than that.

Also see the essay 'In Praise of Idleness' by Bertrand Russel and 'Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren' by Keynes, both available online and published in the early 1930s.

[7Wannabe5]

It can be quite a bit of work to arrange meaningful work opportunities for people who independently don't know how to do it. I wonder if arranging meaningful work opportunities is going to become a growing field of human pursuit.

Could be, but there's also the fact that due to the current labor market shortage, there is needful work to be done that isn't being done. For instance, I don't necessarily consider teaching disadvantaged 5th graders how to move beyond counting on their fingers my purpose in life and I wouldn't say that I love the work, but somebody probably ought to be doing it, and spending 12 hours/week at $25/hr simultaneously checks my boxes of covering my current living expenses and providing community service towards better life for everybody in the future. I know "what if everybody did it?" is weak analysis, but current labor market shortages do kind of highlight what sort of community work might fall through the cracks if everybody was just focused on creative self-actualization type work.

[chenda]

spending 12 hours/week at $25/hr simultaneously checks my boxes of covering my current living expenses and providing community service towards better life for everybody in the future.

That's pretty cool. I imagine your tax is quite low on all that too. Do you get the full package of sick pay, pro rata holiday, pension etc ?