Damn it Feels Good to be a Gangsta

[Western Red Cedar]

In the world of early retirement options there are two endpoints. Work as much as possible to condense the amount of years worked into as short a time as possible, or work as little as possible so that as few hours per week are spent working. I believe the ERE book phrased it as "work 40 hours a week for 5 years or work 5 hours a week for 40." I think of semi-ERE as all points in between these possibilities.

I like how you've framed this and really appreciate that you continue to elaborate on SemiERE. Thinking in terms of the two bands helps illustrate the possibilities of leveraging your skills or financial capital, and relieves some of the pressure to race to the finish line without enjoying the ride. You might have a dirtbag adventurer on one end with a few thousand saved for their next excursion, and a white collar professional on the other end with 33x expenses saved and a paid off McMansion with a lake cabin or ski chalet. There are endless possibilities between those extremes, and the application of an ERE mindset only amplifies those possibilities.

Your post also clarifies something I've thought a lot about, which is how to approach SemiERE if you have a family or partner to support. There probably isn't a perfect answer financially, but you might just choose to be a little more conservative in terms of where you land on the SemiERE spectrum. That doesn't mean one can't leave a lucrative career or downshift before hitting 25-33 X expenses, which I think is an extremely valuable insight for much of the mainstream FIRE community.

[Jin+Guice]

@WRC: Thanks! I'm glad this stuff is helpful to somebody. I never thought about how this would effect someone who has a family to support, bc their experience is so much different than my own.

[horsewoman]

Great discussion! It is my firm belief that only certain personalities are attracted to semi-ERE. You need to be comfortable to be between worlds, if that makes sense? I see myself pretty much in the middle of the salaryman-businessman-workingman-renaissanceman quadrant. It would really stress me out put all my eggs into one basket, no matter which one. Also - how very boring! And I think this is the crux of the matter, as already mentioned in the tread - doing the same thing 40 hours a week for five years seems almost impossible for someone of my temperament. In any case, I never managed it in 25+ years of gainful employment... Not even 3 years, to be honest. This way of living appeals to very few people, I found (xNTP?). People kind of envy us for our stress-free life, but generally think we are rather odd.

As to semi-ERE with a family - as long as the partners are on the same page it is doable. DH and I earn more than we need in (at this time) 34 hours a week (both of us put together). Plenty of free time for our hobbies and resting. We are probably the happiest and most relaxed couple of our acquaintance, no way to know if that would be the case as well if we worked full time.
Our daughter grew up with this, she actually never had a full-time working parent all her life. I'm very curious how she`ll turn out in that regard!

I feel the need to point out that semi-ERE is a lot easier in Germany, where health care is taken care of by a part-time job, it even covers any dependants. That takes a lot of the pressure off!

[Jin+Guice]

Retire in Necessities, Work for Luxuries:

I think the average lifespan of EREing to travel the world is 2.5 years. Travelers eventually tire of constant luxury and consumption. Not surprising for people whose goal it is to remain personally productive while cutting luxury and consumption to the bone.

Full-EREers often cite problems of life made too easy and a feeling of disconnection from the world because of disparate lifestyles.

A possible solution to these problems is to retire only in necessity, but earn and consume luxuries within the same period.

No oversaving for a lifetime of travel only to burn out three years in. No access to endless luxuries. Less disconnection from others bc you likely still need to earn money. No need to accurately predict what future you may want, make that bastard work for their wants!

You'll have to define for yourself what constitutes a luxury and what constitutes a necessity.

Determining necessities vs luxuries can be done between categories or within categories. Take housing for example. Shelter is for sure a necessity. But how much housing is a necessary? The cheapest room? The cheapest room in an acceptable neighborhood? Sleeping under the stars? How creative are you willing to get?

But, maybe you want to live in luxurious housing once in awhile or for 3 months only in your life. Retiring in necessity relieves the burden of wondering if your future self will give into temptation or have a change of heart or circumstance. You've got skin in the game in terms of lifestyle inflation or wants. Do you want that thing bad enough to go back to work for it?

Retiring in necessity allows you to make decisions regarding the time/ money tradeoff in the moment where the tradeoff is actually made. Take 2 years off to improve you cooking skills while living with nothing and then go back to work for 3 months to travel around the world, eating and improving your skills.

Dip your toe into early retirement. Find out if you really want to live in that trailer or studio apartment forever. Do you want a change bad enough to go back to w*rk? How permanently do you want it? Better to make these decisions with more information after living retired for a few years.

[classical_Liberal]

I haven't had paid work for almost two years. I actively manage some of my investments as a part time job... maybe 2-5 hrs a week. As I type this I'm drinking a beer at 2PM by the pool in my studio apmt complex in a beach paradise town in Mexico. I've been here all winter.

I have a neighbor here whose been here most of the winter too, but he's got a six figure online business and spends 40-60 hours a week working. Every day he bitches about it. He's under the impression my life is much better. When I was him, I would've thought the same. Now I'm not so sure.

Admittedly, I've had a few relatively traumatic issues these past 12 months, with the death of two close family members and a long term GF that dumped me. Those all sucked. But they sucked more because I didn't have any busy work to do to take my mind off them. Not that I want to go back to some job that I hate, but it sure would've have been nice to have something to "throw myself into" for awhile. Something that felt more productive than 90% leisure.

This is not to say I wish I hadn';t quit my previous career. I had grown to despise it and will never do the exact same work again. I wish i would have quit much sooner. I also wish I would have gotten myself something PT that was a more enjoyable, and scalable, to do right away. So it would have been there when I needed the distraction the most.

My general point.. Make all the plans you want. But even massive planners like us ERE'ers are only going to be able to see 2-5 years ahead in our life, and even then there can be a myriad of things out of their control that changes things up. Anyone with 5 yrs expenses and a job they hate should make changes immediately, even if you think you wanna do nothing forever, because I highly doubt that'll be the case.

Good to read your update J+G

[Jin+Guice]

@c_L: Good to hear from you! Sorry to hear about the family members and the gf.

I think a decompression period is often necessary. You were pretty burnt out at the end of your nursing tenure and I think not having any work for awhile was just what the doctor ordered. Distraction can be good, but it can also take away from your own grieving process and your availability to help family members in need (if that's what you want to do). I could also see you craving some external motivation to do something more productive after 2 years.

[Jin+Guice]

Dream Jobs and semi-ERE:

I remember being a child and being curious about the world. I remember when learning was a delight and each new topic was tackled with interest and without self consciousness. I remember when I was excited to choose a career and excited to start my first job.

Long boring school days filled with endless sitting crushed my excitement about learning. The tedium and repetitiveness of the workplace dashed my hopes of personal fulfillment through employment.

I’m guessing that a lot of us have had this experience. Work that was once fun and interesting became drab and exhausting, once we were either confronted with the debilitating tedium or unnecessary breakneck pace of paid employment. Or perhaps the core task of our work is enjoyable, but we are weighed down by non-essential responsibilities and mundane administrative tasks.

This disillusionment was what initially led me to early retirement. However, now that we possess the tools to escape from the shackles of career, I’m giving us permission to dream a little bit.

The toolset ERE gives us provides several opportunities for the integration of interesting work with an interesting life. Do a job for 5 years. Do only the university courses for a specific field or interest area. Aim for a job previously considered impossible to get. Do a job once thought to be untenable as a career or too poorly paid to do. Start a company.

The career possibilities are endless once time and money are not a problem. Frugality adds an extra tool. Expensive training? Is it necessary? Would a future employer pay for it?

Without the usual societal expectations of lifetime employment devotion for 40-60 hours a week, it’s possible to pick any career path. Choices are limitless and the price of failure is low.

Perhaps the major difficulty is intrinsic motivation. There may be a need to generate circumstances that have some external consequences for optimized learning and motivational purposes.

What was a childhood dream job? What is your current dream job? Will the opportunities provided by ERE be used to boldly pursue these interests?

[theanimal]

I've really enjoyed your recent series of posts.

Work that was once fun and interesting became drab and exhausting, once we were either confronted with the debilitating tedium or unnecessary breakneck pace of paid employment. Or perhaps the core task of our work is enjoyable, but we are weighed down by non-essential responsibilities and mundane administrative tasks.

Seems like the trap is avoiding getting to this point and tempting burnout. After that, it can be hard to see anything but the negatives in other jobs leading to maintaining the status quo or lacking a strong initiative to try anything else. This also ties in to @cL's and your previous posts. Having too much money can have the same effect, an impediment to try different things because of the same bias to consider the negative aspects more so than the positives. I wonder if this mindset is reversible.

[jacob]

Let me attempt an analogy here:

School classes that were once fun and interesting became boring and tedious once tasks became repetitive and the pace of learning slower to a crawl. Perhaps the core idea of learning was enjoyable but we're weighed down by grades and endless textbook problems.

We have within the school system several opportunities to graduate from a class and more onto the next class but maybe after a while all classes begin to look that same much like how there is a difference between the challenge of running your first marathon and the challenge of running 10 more.

But one day we graduate and become free of the daily repetition of solving problems and writing essays that nobody but the teacher will ever read.

It is possible that the solution to school boredom and eventual graduation lies in not trying very hard or abandoning classes halfway through. This way one can stay in school forever. The challenge remains and one never runs out of classes to try. If the school work becomes too easy perhaps the motivation to engage drops too much. The answer could be to try to make it harder for oneself.

Does this argument sound crazy?

But isn't this the argument that's being made for staying in the workforce rather than treating of career+FI as just another phase to get through before living begins in earnest at age, say, 30. Yet, society likes to extend the 10-year period from 20 to 65. Why is that?

Once you've done all the school classes and graduated, there's little desire to go back to the same classes. It's the same with jobs and careers. So I don't think it's reversible. As such it's a little bit like a red pill blue pill issue. You technically can go back but your experience will never feel the same because it's technically no longer exploring---like running your first marathon---it's more to see if one can repeat the same exercise over and over in a dependable fashion.

The primary problem here, I think, is not necessarily to calibrate one's effort to stay in a job-stage between the school-stage and the retirement-stage as if human potential went something like: born-toddler-school-job-retire-die ...

It might look like this: born-toddler-school-job-X-Y-Z-die ... and the main issue here is that we don't really know just what X, etc. looks like. Also see viewtopic.php?p=255129#p255129

But it depends!!

Take a look at https://mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm ... and then the answer becomes a lot more personal. If you're an explorer, exploring the same territory over and over is no longer exploration. Conversely, a socializer would be happy to stay within the same system forever(?). And so on ...

[classical_Liberal]

Does this argument sound crazy?

No, I used to have this exact argument with my ex. "Don't you just want to try something BECAUSE it's hard?"

The problem moving from job "X" to "Y" is institutional, in that all the really interesting stuff seems to require a large prep/educational time that's not worth the results (ie a few years of interest in a new specialty). This is coming from someone who spent 4 years retraining at one point.

That's not to say that we do no life in a unique time with much more than average opportunities to gain entry level into various (thanks employment squeeze) positions. Really, someone like me should take advantages of this.

My point is that there are "generals", then there are lieutenants. Leaders who are smart enough to identify a good general, and a good premise, but lack the ability to truly formulate a new battle plan alone. Sometimes the good LT's get lost in the woods. I think that's me, and I doubt I'm alone.

[7Wannabe5]

I won't speak for my fellow XNTP, Jin + Guice, but as a generalist's generalist, I am entirely capable of doing the entire born-toddler-school-job-retire-die cycle within the course of single day I've often considered that it might be a fun challenge to have to start from scratch making enough money to survive the day every day for a while. LIke, my eco-limit divided by 30 is around $28/day, how many ways can I come up with to hustle $28 by sundown?

Also, it's never a marathon, it's always a decathlon, so if 2 or 3 of your 10 current activities are money-making then that seems about right in terms of the overall distribution of spaces to be explored, because a lot of spaces are money-making spaces. Like the first 300 times you joyfully ride your bike past the people who are commuting into the parking lot in the light industrial space by your house, you are so happy you are not one of them, but then there might come a day when you wonder what do they do in that building?

[AxelHeyst]

No, I used to have this exact argument with my ex. "Don't you just want to try something BECAUSE it's hard?"

The problem moving from job "X" to "Y" is institutional, in that all the really interesting stuff seems to require a large...

I think Jacobs point is that forcing oneself to articifially stay in the category of activity of [job] *should* sound crazy, just as crazy as gaming the system to stay in school forever. Some people do try to stay in school forever. Most of us judge these people as being stuck, possibly afraid to face the real world of the next stage of being an adult (getting a job/career).

X and Y aren't different jobs or positions, they're not even unique or extra challenging jobs. X is something qualitatively different than a job or a position. And Y is something equally different from X even.

Apologies if you grokked it but I misunderstood your response.

If I'm getting this clearly, Jacob is suggesting that the danger of the semiERE approach is that it perpetually traps the semiEREr in stasis, keeping their mindset stuck navigating the "job" level of development... Forever. Or much longer than is necessary, anyways.

Which is fine if you're good with that. But it's a bad strategy if you want to know/experience what X or Y is.

[jacob]

That was my point.

Add: There are people who become perma-students and spend 20 years in college collecting random course credit. However, since education is considered a phase and intended to obtain a degree to go to work, they're considered crazy by others for doing so. The next phase after student life is work life, but since most people are perma-workers we see this phase as normal or even desirable or if nothing else as the only alternative. It is seen as the end-stage of western adult development. And so most people spend all their life on this and becoming the best worker they can be until they're incapacitated by "age". But what if there's a phase after being a worker, lets say "contemplation", ... and another one after that, say, "Kegan6". If so then semiERE is a form of arrested development in the work phase just as the person who spends 20 years in college was arrested in the student phase. This would not be a problem except life is finite.

At fifteen I set my heart upon learning.
At thirty, I had planted my feet firm upon the ground.
At forty, I no longer suffered from perplexities.
At fifty, I knew what were the biddings of Heaven.
At sixty, I heard them with docile ear.
At seventy, I could follow the dictates of my own heart; for what I desired no longer overstepped the boundaries of right.

compared to the standard 20th century(*)

At five I went to school
At twenty I went to college
At twenty five I went to work
At seventy I went to Florida to await my death

However, since there's little experience aside from a few individual experiences outside job-life, there are no ready examples for those other potential phases. But it could also be that human potential is finite---that there are no further stages. If so compressing the entire industrialized mass-consumer experience from college to retirement into 10 years instead of extending it to the usual 50-60 years would be a mistake. One could end up staring at a wall in meditative contemplation for 20 years and find nothing.

(*) One result is that there's a lot of 70yos who are psychologically no more mature different than when they went 25 having spent the past 45 years exercising the same brain cells and not creating new connections.

[AxelHeyst]

Whelp, I'm off to reevaluate my life choices then. Night y'all.

[jacob]

I'm not saying that FI is the right choice but I have noticed that FI tends to curb my enthusiasm for seeking out financial capital in favor of intellectual capital. The drive to be productive rather than consumptive in terms of capital persists but it's more about producing and trading interesting ideas with others than money. The work I do essentially gives me access that I could never buy.

Therein lies the difference [between semiERE and FI/ERE] if there is one.

That's not to say one can not gain such access working for money or that there isn't any overlap.

This idea can be extended to other kinds of capital. For example, one might go to work for social capital and make money ... but if money wasn't the main objective for most people being present the social capital would not be colleagues but something else. On the flip-side semiERE keeps a foot in both camps and the workcamp is much much larger than the "poor aristocrat" camp. This should not be underestimated either. For example, if technical capital is the goal, industry has a lot more of that than one can find in the home kitchen sink.

[Jin+Guice]

@jacob: Thanks for that last clarifying statement, I'm glad I let this ride overnight before replying.

When I talk about semi-ERE I'm always talking about expanding the possibility set and considering interesting (to me) alternatives. FI may not be the right choice and working a bunch of jobs may not be the right choice. But for different people, one or both of these things may be the right choice.

I also think that you, Jacob, are personally suited for quiet self-guided intellectual pursuits. I think your self-direction and personal drive are rare qualities and others struggle with these things once they retire.

This idea can be extended to other kinds of capital. For example, one might go to work for social capital and make money ... but if money wasn't the main objective for most people being present the social capital would not be colleagues but something else. On the flip-side semiERE keeps a foot in both camps and the workcamp is much much larger than the "poor aristocrat" camp. This should not be underestimated either. For example, if technical capital is the goal, industry has a lot more of that than one can find in the home kitchen sink.

Yes, this was what I meant. Since money is now secondary and worries about career null, we have the freedom to pursue work for other goals. Paid employment will always come with its own set of constraints, but it will also always come with its own set of opportunities which are not available elsewhere. In terms of pure possibility, semi-ERE is a disadvantage bc some money still needs to be earned. In terms of external motivation, this is an advantage.

Another possibility is going back and forth between paid employment and periods of reflection. Paid employment, volunteer work, some form of schooling are taken as long as they further your personal goals and/ or development and left behind once they no longer do.



I disagree that staying in paid employment is getting stuck in a certain cycle of life or not developing. I agree that it could be. Is the perma-student hoarding credits or are they gathering knowledge? Is the perma-worker hoarding money or gathering skills/ insight/ access?

The period of schooling to work for adulthood to retire to Florida to await death is a construct of our society and FI is a reaction to that construct. I think it's possible to develop fully as a human totally within that construct, just as it is possible to develop outside of it.

If the growth model is school->worker->reflectionist aka learner->producer-> thinker, then shouldn't one stop learning once one starts producing and stop producing once one starts reflecting?



I think we may be saying the same thing from different directions in different ways. Cycling through jobs for paid employments sake is akin to cycling through majors for degrees sake. It is important to keep this in mind if one seeks the things higher WLs have to offer, but remains in the workforce. However, imo, paid employment or extra schooling *can* be used to further ones ambitions towards becoming a WL7+ or "active player."



ETA: This is also what I meant:

Also, it's never a marathon, it's always a decathlon, so if 2 or 3 of your 10 current activities are money-making then that seems about right in terms of the overall distribution of spaces to be explored, because a lot of spaces are money-making spaces.

To me, this more or less says what the above quote from @jacob says.

[classical_Liberal]

I On the flip-side semiERE keeps a foot in both camps and the workcamp is much much larger than the "poor aristocrat" camp. This should not be underestimated either. For example, if technical capital is the goal, industry has a lot more of that than one can find in the home kitchen sink.

Right, and its not just the technical side. Those inside the "normie" camp comes a ton of ideas and enthusiasm. Not just to make money (Although that is often an unfortunate side effect of someone with vision).

Back to bla bla bla personality models, it can be a huge mistake for someone who is not a "visionary" to detach themselves from the visionaries that motivate them. Those, for instance who thrive on Synthesizing or copying in a CCCC model, may die on the vine without some original inspiration. I'm not sure this person should be considered a level below the originator of an idea. Because there are plenty of great ideas in which there is no follow through.

In any event, whether its truly a human progression, or a personality difference, it doesn't matter as long as there isn't a lack of high level ideas. However, someone forcing originality, when they are perfectly content copying , collating , or synthesizing another's ideas can breed personal discontent. There is a middle ground between originator of brand new idea, and twisting the same twist tie on a cog for 40 years.

I've said this before, but again... I like making my bed in the morning, doing dishes, shaving, etc. I look forward to these activities because there is a peace to be found in them. Even sometimes when I try them a bit differently. One doesn't always have to seek some higher truth.

Back to topic. For people like me the Semi-ERE route has more advantages.

[7Wannabe5]

What if freedom really doesn’t have that much to do with money? What if it has more to do with your ability to manage the emotions of fear, guilt, shame and the envy of others*? What if the mythologies we attach to money are intimately intertwined with our inherent temperaments and unique experiences?

For instance, from my “mythological perspective “ there is something a little bit “how can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat?” in the implication that freedom of creative or intellectual expression can only manifest once 33.3 years of expenses have been invested. Obviously, this is not a strict requirement for self-actualization.

OTOH, setting this or other prerequisites up as barriers to self-actualization and then failing to achieve these goals could be a mechanism to avoid the high level fear of the challenges of freedom. How much of the sort of freedom you can purchase with a passive income do you really need to start pursuing your vision or your passion?

*I am parroting Hanzi Freinacht here.

[classical_Liberal]

Free your mind, and the rest will follow. Channeling En Vogue circa1990.

There's a chicken and egg issue at play here. Cog maker (CM) realizes that making cogs for 40 years isn't fulfilling. So CM joins the ERE cult and makes cogs for 5+ years and retires on semi-passive cash flow. However, how can CM know whats its like to not have to make cogs anymore? Does CM understand why he didn't want to make cogs in the first place?

If he actually did, what happens two years later when CM changes his mind and wants to feel more fulfilled again, like in the good 'ole days when he was part of something bigger and made cogs. Maybe there's a better way to make cogs? but visionary cog creator isn't something he enjoys or aspires towards. The natural tendency here is to look towards those visionaries and maybe find a part of the visionary cog making that CM can contribute towards. Without also losing the personal autonomy learned after two years of "freedom". However, institutions are not in place for this person to find that role.

Listless, What can CM do? make a black and white choice in a world where grey should be the norm?

[Slevin]

I think Hanzi Freinacht would argue that there are democratized peer to peer workspaces being created at an ever accelerating pace, and if the cogmaker is looking in the right places (the ever expanding interesting edges, see https://www.enspiral.com/ for one such existing example, but its generally the creative edges in the worlds most stable places ((also see flat work structures in web3 development)) who are working on things they think will change everything) the cogmaker can probably find a self actualization role, where he feels fulfilled "playing" i.e. "working".

I'm not certain about the truthiness of this post-postmodern proposition, but certainly some of these things do exist at the edge, and interesting problems exist within them in which one cogmaker might find his interest to again contribute (at his own pace of contribution and ability to meaningfully contribute, i.e. autonomy). It is probably not a "job" in the same strict sense as the cogmaker is used to, and so the failure of imagination or knowing that these exist might be the biggest obstacle to the toolmaker.