By Dr. Jim Dahle, WCI FounderA WCIer sent me a link to a profanity-filled diatribe about the FIRE movement recently. For those who are unaware, FIRE stands for Financially Independent Retire Early. That diatribe was filled with so many straw men that it was hard to take seriously, but if you sorted through the garbage, there were a few pearls in there. I thought a criticism of it might make for a fun post, pointing out the straw men and the issues that someone contemplating FIRE really should consider.
I don't know much about the guy who wrote it, Jared Dillian. I think he might have used to work in finance and now maybe works from home as a freelance writer or blogger or something. He has seven cats, has a side gig DJing, and loves his Rolex. He is trying to sell his book. Doesn't matter. We're not going ad hominem here; instead, we'll be focusing on his arguments.
Unstructured Free Time
His first criticism of FIRE is that early retirees have too much unstructured free time, and they won't like it. Seems a little rich for a guy who works from home writing on his own schedule but whatever. Here's how he puts it:
“I am not a big fan of unstructured free time. If you’re like me, you probably know some Boomers who have retired poorly. They had visions of going to the beach, traveling, or visiting the grandkids, and instead they spend their days in the living room with the brown carpet with Fox News turned up to 11. Retirement is hard. If you don’t have a plan, you will descend into loneliness and despair, with Fox News as background noise. If you retire in your 30s, you will spend a lot of time playing the ding-a-ling banjo. After a few years of such self-abuse, you will write a book that nobody reads, play songs that nobody hears, or start a blog that nobody clicks on. You will accomplish nothing. You will live a life without accomplishment or purpose. But that’s not even the worst part . . .
The one thing you consistently hear from the FIRE folks is that they are quitting their jobs to pursue their dreams. I don’t know about you, but I can only spend so many hours a day pursuing my dreams. Like, I can’t DJ all the time. I simply could not fill the hours. You know what I can do all the time? Work.”
That's a serious straw man there. Look, some people need more structured time than others to be happy. I've found that six shifts a month and a few meetings a week are plenty of structured time for me. I really like days with nothing on the calendar. If I have three or four of them in a row? Great. Doesn't bother me. And I love being able to disappear off the grid for a week or even three at a time. The unspoken implication here, of course, is that staying in a job or field you hate instead of FIREing from it is better. That's garbage. You can have a life without accomplishment or purpose with or without work and with or without being financially independent.
There are also plenty of really cool things that work will keep you from doing. Want to spend three weeks backpacking in Bhutan? Want to cross Antarctica? Good luck doing that while holding down a regular job and having to use your two weeks of vacation a year to visit both sets of grandparents.
The kernel of truth here, of course, is that you need to retire to something, whether you retire at 35 or 75. But it's OK to have a little “spaciousness” until you find that something.
More information here:
Is FIRE Really Just an Empty Goal?
Market Watching and Unrealistic Return Expectations?
The next bit of his argument is probably the biggest straw man in the whole post.
“The worst part is that you will spend every waking moment hawking over the movements of the stock market. If the stock market goes up, you can stay retired. If the stock market goes down, and stays down, you will have to get a job, which will be impossible if you have a 10-year gap in your CV. If you’re financially trained, you know the periodicity of corrections and bear markets and great bear markets. Over the course of 50 years, there will be lots of ups and downs, and at least one occasion where the stock market goes down 50% or more. If that happens, you will be [soiling] your pants. You will be paralyzed with fear. Retiring at age 35 sounds interesting in principle, but in practice, it would be hell. Imagine being completely idle and have nothing to do except worry about your small pile of money turning to dust . . .
The FIRE people typically use very generous return assumptions on their investment portfolios. They generally think that the stock market returns 12% a year. I have seen the 15% number thrown around. The stock market does not return 12% or 15% a year. It returns a little over 9%. So what these ding-dongs do is build a spreadsheet of their earnings and extrapolate it out 50 years, thinking that they are the first people on earth to discover compound interest. And sure, if you are compounding at 12%, the numbers look pretty good. But there is no rule that says that the stock market will return 12% a year. The conditions that led to prior returns might not be present for future returns. It’s a belief that these 12% returns are an immutable law of nature, like gravity. Really, it’s an article of faith. You’re betting your life and your life savings on the idea that US stocks will be the most attractive destination for capital over the next 100 years. I am not so sure, certainly not sure enough to bet my life on it.”
What? I've never seen a serious FIRE blogger advocate for expected returns of 12%, much less 15%. And most don't argue for US stock-only portfolios. I would argue that, more than just about anyone else, hardcore members of the FIRE community “get” the numbers behind retiring and the stock market. While they are usually DIY investors, they're usually capable ones with low-cost, broadly diversified index fund portfolios appropriate for their financial goals. They have a realistic idea of what they can expect from stocks and other financial instruments. Most of society would do better with a little more of the financial literacy that is pretty universal among the FIRE crowd.
FIRE Folks Are Cheap Environmentalists
Not frugal. Not thrifty. Cheap. Here's how he puts it:
“This is a fact: material things bring us happiness. It is good and right and a joyful thing to see a fancy new jacket in a store, try it on, look in the mirror, whip out your credit card, wear it out of the store, and show it off to all your friends. To deny yourself a lifetime of material possessions is insanity. You’re not Gandhi. The FIRE movement is not a savings and investment movement. It is an anti-consumption movement, and it has its roots in environmentalism. If you don’t buy something, it won’t end up in the landfill, and you will lead an entire life without any impact on the planet. These people are the cheapest of cheap [schmucks] on the planet, because they believe that consumption is evil. They will agonize and obsess over a dollar. All their kids are going to end up in therapy . . .
I don’t want to consume nothing and produce nothing—I want to produce a lot and consume a lot. That is pretty much what life is all about. Live hard and leave a smoking crater. Just because we have possessions doesn’t mean our possessions own us. Stuff isn’t who we are—relationships are more important. But go out and buy a new Rolex and tell me that stuff doesn’t make you happy. The Rolex doesn’t make you happy—it was the virtues it took to make the money that you bought it with, which is something the FIRE people will never understand.”
I think there's some validity in this criticism, but by taking it to the opposite extreme, he opens himself up to just as much criticism as he passes out. Unbridled consumerism IS bad for the planet. And while maybe your new Rolex does make you happier (I'm certainly enjoying my new truck), there's probably a limit on how much it can do for you on the happiness scale. The scarcity mentality is bad, but we do only get one planet and the happiness studies are pretty clear that “stuff” can only do so much for you in the happiness realm. Consuming is definitely NOT what life is all about.
More information here:
Frugal vs. Cheap – What’s the Difference? (Plus 11 Tips to Avoid Being Cheap)
The FIRE Community Hates Work
This one is a great example of truth and lies all wound up together.
“The one thing that all the FIRE people have in common is that they hate work. Like, they really, really hate their jobs. I have a theory on this. Happy people like their jobs, unhappy people don’t. It doesn’t matter what job they have; unhappy people will be unhappy no matter what they are doing. They talk about the ‘soul-destroying' 40-hour work week. I don’t know about you, but I like the 80-hour work week even better. I have something in common with Mike Bloomberg—my favorite time of the week is Sunday night, because I am so excited about going back to work the following morning and do [stuff]. The Sunday Scaries are for cherries. I’ll go further and say these people are lazy . . . Can you imagine employing one of these people, plotting and scheming to do as little work as possible, counting the days until retirement, shirking and malingering, creating negative value in the process? Imagine a person whose goal is to produce nothing, consume nothing, and merely exist, stealing everyone else’s oxygen in the process.”
I confess that I agree that many people seeking FIRE really just need a better job. But let's be honest, lots of jobs suck, and I'd be lying if I didn't say I much prefer to work part-time than full-time. To pretend that it is super easy for everyone to find high-paying work that they love so much they would do it for free is Pollyannaish at best.
You know what some of the things I've done in my life that have made me happiest? Dropping night shifts. Hiring help in our business that allowed me to not do the stuff I hate. Getting out of the military where I was seeing five patients an hour for 12 hours a day for 15 shifts a month, more when someone got deployed but still grateful it wasn't me that deployed. You know what allowed me to do that? The principles espoused by the FIRE community—high savings rate, smart investments, lifestyle control, working smarter and not harder. I've worked 80-hour weeks for multiple years. Pretending it's enjoyable and sustainable long term for the vast majority of people—even hard-driven type A people—is nonsense. But work has been and continues to be a meaningful part of my life, even post-FI.
More information here:
I’m Retiring in My Mid-40s; Here’s How I’ll Start Drawing Down My Accounts
FIRE Is Racist
Here's where he really goes off the rails.
“You know who is responsible for this ridiculousness? White people. More specifically, white guys in checkered shirts with ironic moustaches in Longmont, Colorado. One of the questions you have to ask about finance fads is: what if everyone did it? What if everyone retired at age 35 and played the ding-a-ling banjo? Well, GDP would go to zero and the stock market would crash. Investing only works if other people are working. So really, the FIRE people are the ultimate free-riders, piggybacking off the efforts of others, while contributing nothing but blog posts and Instagram reels about Van Life. The FIRE movement has no political overtones, but it’s worth pointing out that its adherents are predominantly liberal, because no self-respecting conservative would spend one second considering the possibility of dropping out of society and covering “Hey Soul Sister” on the ukulele. The FIRE people also have a poor understanding of how capitalism works—the stock market is a function of corporate profits which is a function of output, which requires everyone to chip in. The stock market is not magic beans, and it is not number go up. An elegant solution to the problem of not enough money is to make more money, which never occurred to these dingbats.”
First of all, there's nothing racist about things like savings rates and index funds and safe withdrawal rates—the stuff of which FIRE is made. There are plenty of people in the FIRE community whose skin is not white.
There also isn't much risk of “everyone doing this.” Yes, FIRE folks are free-riding on those who work every day, just like index fund investors are free-riding on the efforts of the active managers out there. Human nature and investor behavior being what it is, this will never be something even a larger minority of people will do.
Then, he brings in some bizarre political bent to the movement (FIRE folks are all liberals!), which I thought was particularly interesting since he thinks retirees spend all their time watching Fox News on their brown carpet. As near as I can tell, aside from an anti-consumption bias (is that really political?), there is little political philosophy out there that is shared among FIRE adherents. And they're all capitalists as near as I can tell. I mean, that's what a capitalist is . . . someone whose capital does all of the work instead of their labor.
Finally, plenty of FI folks still do some work that makes money. They just love the freedom that comes with not having to do it.
Doctor FIRE Isn't Quite the Same
While Mr. Dillian's post was not doctor-specific, it's important to realize that the longer training pipeline of doctors somewhat ameliorates many of his criticisms of FIRE. Doctors don't typically FIRE at 30 or 35. Many of them haven't even started earning at those ages, much less paid off several hundred thousand dollars of student loans or burnt off a decade of pent-up delayed gratification. Extreme doctor FIRE doesn't really happen before your mid-40s, and most doctor FIRE probably doesn't happen until the early 50s. That removes 15ish years of financial and social pressure from the equation. It's just a fact of life that it can be “normal” for someone to be retired in their 50s, but it might still seem “weird” to some to be retired in their 30s or 40s.
On a related note, most of this criticism is all about the RE part of the equation. There is precious little bad about FI, although if you don't want the RE part of FIRE, taking a little longer to get the FI part might have allowed you to enjoy the ride a little more.
What do you think? What do you criticize about the FIRE movement? What did you think about this article?
The comment “The FIRE people also have a poor understanding of how capitalism works ” reveals a lack of understanding of the American economy. The United States doesn’t have a capitalist economy; it has a mixed economy. Since the Washington Administration and the passage of the Tariff Act of 1789 & The Lighthouse Act of 1789 (long forgotten, it nationalized state and privately held lighthouses and buoys) the government has been involved in the economy. There are some things the government does better than the private sector and there are things that the private sector does better. On his last day in office, President Madison vetoed an internal improvement bill stating that the federal government had no Constitutional authority to build roads &c. (President Monroe signed similar legislation). From interstates, to dams, to fire and water, we accept the benefits of a mixed economy.
FIRE would probably be more popular if we had a healthcare system that was along the lines of Canada’s system or Britain’s NHS. The unpredictability of future medical costs makes FIRE in your 30’s and 40’s very risky. Doctors’ way of reaching FIRE is more likely via part-time work in their 50’s and 60’s.
Not sure I understand your comment. If you buy health insurance, what’s so unpredictable about your future health care costs? Add your premiums to your max out of pocket. That’s the cost. I agree the cost is very high, but I don’t find it unpredictable. More info here:
https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/health-insurance-in-early-retirement/
I’ve seen the cost of health insurance, and also the cost of medications skyrocket if someone develops common conditions – depression, rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, CAD, cancer, etc. Compounding that variability over 5-6 decades for the 30 year old, but only over 2-3 decades for a 60 year old makes the range of outcomes much wider for the former (so higher risk in my opinion).
Most people go on Medicare at 65 which adds in even more predictability.
I agree, it was the 30-40 year olds – a long way from Medicare, that I felt were taking high risk with future medical costs. 60 year olds, even 55 year olds, will bridge to Medicare with reasonable predictability, IMO.
I don’t know what the OP had in mind of course, but I think many people worry about the exchanges disappearing due to possible new legislation. This is not an unfounded concern given Republicans’ dozens of attempts at weakening/disappearing the ACA. And there is always the possibility of developing a medical condition that insurance refuses to cover in one way or another. Again, not an unfounded fear. I have to fight my insurance co every single quarter to get my husband’s blood test covered for his rare cancer. So far I’ve won every appeal but a lot of people don’t know to fight. Or would be rebuffed for legit expenses anyway (hello Medicare Advantage!)
And then there are possible issues with teeth and eyes which we treat differently for health finance purposes…but where the expenses hit our wallets nonetheless!
Hopefully if the ACA changes that feature won’t go away. That was the best part in my view. It was ridiculous before that.
I agree that Tricare- similar to Medicare in coverage and almost as much participation but even cheaper- was a key factor encouraging us to FIRE. Not as $ wise valuable as the pensions attached to our decades of service/ work but given the gamble of health care expenses, to know ours will have a reasonable top limit and not vanish on us (unless, and only for me, I am widowed or divorced and choose to remarry) a true difference from those who may delay retirement until Medicare is available or only leave a job if they can get similar health insuance from part time work or spousal coverage.
It’s a branding issue. Agree with WCI’s criticisms. People ranting against FIRE seem to not really understand what it is truly about. It’s not about retiring and not working. It’s about having options in your life. To quote WCI: “They just love the freedom that comes with not having to do it.” I’m amazed at otherwise great financial bloggers out there who focus on what is wrong about the FIRE movement. They don’t really seem to fully understand it.
There’s a regular podcast who has been trying to rebrand FIRE as the FINE movement. Financial Independence, Next Endeavor. This speaks to the fact that you need to retire to something rather than from something. Not as great a brand as FIRE but FINE speaks more to what FIRE people are doing, or at least the FIRE people who are doing FIRE right.
How about FILTH
Financial Independence to Live True Happiness.
Or F.I. Live Towards Health
Even though those acronyms are better, they will never catch on. FIRE is just too catchy. Nobody will be talking about the FINE or FILTH movement.
This guy is a piece of work. “If you retire in your 30s, you will spend a lot of time playing the ding-a-ling banjo.” Wow. Did he just say what I think he said? Yes. Yes, he did! A lot of early retirees are married, so they will have some else to play their ding-a-ling banjo. He says in another place that their kids will need therapy, so he knows, on some level, that these are parents with young children. But somehow they will also have lots of time to watch television alone?
All the name-calling makes me think this is just a bitter old man with a joyless existence.
I love FILTH as an acronym! FINE is also good – the Money Guy show is great.
I’ve also used “RE= recreational employment”, from Go With Less.
FIRE to me is more about the preparation of the actual event. Akin to climbing Everest, you have lots of preparation and training that needs to take place before you even would consider the climb. You may be totally prepared, but still decide this year isn’t your year…or maybe it is!? The totality of efforts (ie–focus on savings rate) is what provides us with the opportunity to make that jump into RE when we’re able. The writer’s thoughts are singular based on his interpretation of what FIRE means. Based on his descriptions, I would expect that he hasn’t lived much life outside of work…
Yes, the writer should definitely spend more time outside of work. 🙂
Or maybe you weren’t referring to me.
I really enjoyed this article. This was a fun read. I love criticism. If you are confident and know why you are doing FI, no reason to get all upset.
You should post more articles like this. Post people’s opinions on certain things and then we can break them down to hear their argument and then we decide what is best for us.
I agree. That was fun. I enjoyed the breakdown and frankly the article brought me a chuckle. Funny enough, all the FIRE people I follow, WCI included strike me as still working and likely working more (with the control they have always wanted over their schedules, their roles, and their lives = greater happiness and freedom). Don’t we always say, “if you find a job you love, you won’t feel like it’s work”. Well that is the epitome of the FIRE movement. Perhaps the nomenclature must be adjusted, the RE part. Or we just say what we really mean… “retire early from a job/situation you thought you wanted but found out it wasn’t what you thought it would be… so go out and find something else… while being financially secure”. Thanks for the high level laugh today!
Just a poorly written critique. He envisions hordes of fire proponents sitting at home being brainwashed by Fox News and the next sentence described them as crunchy lazy liberals. He sits at home all day “writing “ and has the gall to criticize someone not wanting to sit in a cubicle 9-5.
I’m not a fan of the re portion for doctors who, in a naive sense of mine, strive for the greater good in our profession but fi is vital for general mental wellbeing. Just a terrible article from this “writer”
I agree – a great article. Every weird critique he has comes from a FIRE caricature he has created. “After a few years of such self-abuse …”?
That silly article was sent to me early in the year, and I left my commentary right there for the author on his page. It’s one of the top comments, and I’ll copy and paste here to avoid sending yet more people to an article that doesn’t deserve as much publicity as it’s getting:
Strawman defeated!
I opted for “fatFIRE,” retiring early from a rewarding but sometimes stressful career with millions invested and a six-figure annual spend. I don’t pay close attention to the stock market, and another big drawdown wouldn’t phase me. Spending well under 2% of our nest egg annually, it’s more likely that we’ll end up with a 9-figure net worth than zero.
In the 4+ years since I wound down my primary career, we’ve been able to travel all over the world for weeks and sometimes months at a time, “worldschooling” our boys while visiting amazing and historic places before they reached high school. They’ve seen glaciers in New Zealand, volcanoes in Hawaii, geysers in Iceland, and pyramids in Mexico. They’ve set foot in the Parthenon in Athens, the Pantheon in Rome, and saw the purported Holy Grail in Valencia, a city we got to know well over the course of a month. They’ve toured Anne Frank’s house in Amsterdam, Schindler’s Factory in Krakow, the Holocaust Museum in D.C. and Auschwitz / Birkenau in rural Poland.
Reaching FI and choosing RE made all of this and more possible, and my boys are now thriving in a traditional school setting.
There’s so much more. My wife and I have both run our first marathons in the last two years. I took up skiing after a 30-year break, and my kids and I skied 30+ days together last season. I have a 1500+ day streak with the Duolingo language learning app, and I’ve got a similar streak with a daily body-weight exercise routine.
I get that FIRE isn’t for everyone, and when you describe it as leanFIRE for the hopeless, it’s obviously not appealing.
I don’t know that I’m retired for good. I retired from medicine in 2019 and from blogging in 2023. I love the blank slate that I’ve got in front of me, and I’m curious to discover what I might retire from next. But in the meantime, I am forever grateful for the freedom I had to explore the world with my family while our kids were young enough to enjoy our company and old enough to appreciate the experiences we were able to give them.
For a very different take on FIRE from what you’ve apparently been exposed to, you can check out my writings at Physician on FIRE where I explored FI and RE during the finally years of my physician career and the first few years after. In my projections, I used returns of 0% to 6% real, by the way, not 12% to 15%. I don’t know anyone not named Dave Ramsey who does this.
Cheers!
Leif
POF, everyone knows that you are obviously the typical “white” “liberal” “environmentalist” in a “checkered shirt” “covering ‘Hey Soul Sister’ on [your] ukulele” “with Fox News as background noise” after years of “plotting and scheming,” “shirking and malingering” who “believe[s] that consumption is evil” now “paralyzed with fear” and “[soiling] your pants” about” your small pile of money.” Just admit it already. 😉
I am so tempted to put that description of “me” into an AI image generator.
Who is to say that capitalism is the most healthy system for human beings? In the US we actually could afford to hand out UBI to everybody to make paid work optional, yet the ruling class would not agree and the billions and billions of their personal wealth has to grow at the cost of human health. People don’t hate work, but they hate being controlled to work and work in toxic cultures. If left alone, most human beings are not inherently lazy and they naturally want to do something nice to foster connections with others and in the community and to help family and community prosper. Plus a lot of the technology advancements these days are not to make human beings happier, but to profit corporations and sure help the lucky FIRE people’s portfolio. FIRE gives the opportunity for people to free themselves from others’ agenda to pursue what they truly want, and hopefully in the meantime finding the true connections to themselves and their loved ones. Are you truly happier to have a few Tesla sitting in the garage, wearing the latest google lenses, having Amazon premier delivery daily, and posting on Facebook/instagrams/tictock frequently about lavish trips abroad, while at the same time working diligently to meet cutthroat KPIs and dealing with some obnoxious boss/customers who would not stop texting you for something when you are on a cruise?
On the side note, FIRE is not exclusive and racist by itself, it just reflects the current socioeconomic situations for the different demographics. That is why it is important to spread the message, the financial education, the how-to to different communities, and why it is important to support people from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds no matter what races they are to advance in society (that includes poor white, black, Hispanic, Asian and native Americans etc.).
I find the concept of UBI fascinating and would love to see what actually happens if it were ever implemented. It’s really not a political issue either, except in the manner in which it is implemented. Progressives would probably prefer UBI in addition to current welfare spending while conservatives would probably prefer UBI in place of at least some of that spending.
The article on the flaws of the FIRE movement really misses the mark. The only point that’s close to being a valid critique is the unrealistic stock market return assumptions. As WCI points out, no one is suggesting 12 or 15 percent returns but I’ve seen plenty of projections in the 8 to 10 percent range. While that may be a reasonable projection in the long term, the FIRE movement depends on strong market returns during an individual’s 20s/30s. I can’t predict the future, but if we have a decade of flat (or even negative returns), I expect to see fewer new early retirement blogs.
I disagree that good returns are required in the 20s and 30s. If someone is really trying to FIRE, a huge chunk of their portfolio at the time of retirement will simply be brute force saving. The shorter the time period, the less of the work done by your money.
So, to summarize, FIRE folks are racist, but liberal, Fox News watchers, environmentalists, lazy, psychologically self-flagellating, white, poor musicians, too self-assured to worry about correct math while reaching FIRE but then suddenly capable of calculating returns in a depression.
I feel like I’ve just been in the Spin Room after a presidential debate…
This is the adult form of the kid who throws a tantrum during art class just for the attention.
Wow – who is this guy? I agree with you, Jim – just because you’re FI doesn’t mean you can (or want to) RE. And if you do – who cares? It’s your life! Why does this person care what other people do? To counter his argument – for those that do retire early and sit on the couch, watching Fox news all day, or are lazy bums – more power to them! Makes room for younger hungry folks to enter the work place to reach their FI goal! I wonder what kind of music he spins for his DJ gig! lol
And yes – the FIRE community by definition are capitalists, which can range across the political spectrum. This guy is obviously expressing anger about something else in his lfe.
one thing I wanted to comment on- while working, we’re so intensely enjoying our time off- traveling, hiking, boating, skiing and canyoneering just like WCI , in large part, because we know how fleeting these moments of time off and leisure are before me have to go back to our 12 hr shifts or clinics.
Once we are no longer obligated to go back to our work, I wonder how enjoyable all those experiences will be? And would that tropical paradise you always wanted to live in suddenly become a mundane or even annoying everyday experience?
I absolutely agree with this concern. When all you do is recreation it isn’t as fun as when you mix it with work in my experience. That’s one reason why work continues to be an important part of my life long after FI.
FIRE = financial independence, remain employed. FIRE enables people to change to a less stressful but lower paying job.
I love ” Hey Soul Sister” LOL 😉
I don’t like profanity and I don’t like his attitude, but OP does raise some interesting points. Hey should pray and fast for forgiveness.
I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and have seen lots of people retire in their late 40s and early 50s after careers in tech and finance. I have not seen any early-retired lawyers or doctors.
Every single one of the early retiree’s kid are, indeed, in therapy.
I also don’t know anyone, except poor people who live in Concord and Antioch who want to actually retire in their 30s.
Finally, OP never argued that FIRE was racism. He just said it was white. You knocked down a straw man.
I’m occasionally critical of WCI, but he’s got another great post here and response. I know this guy from financial channels, by the way. He’s gruff and uses that language because I think it’s a type of engagement thing the media types do to get attention (like R Pal from realvision, for example) – but Dillian is an OK guy overall.
“I really like days with nothing on the calendar. If I have three or four of them in a row? Great. Doesn’t bother me. And I love being able to disappear off the grid for a week or even three at a time. The unspoken implication here, of course, is that staying in a job or field you hate instead of FIREing from it is better. That’s garbage. You can have a life without accomplishment or purpose with or without work and with or without being financially independent.”
I loved this part of Dr. Dahle’s post. I’m the same way. I love doing the medicine part, but OCCASIONALLY, not a rat race participant. The more you do it, the more it becomes rote and boring as opposed to somewhat interesting.
Dillians also points out a real problem with a lot of the FIRE stuff that almost forces the thing that he hates: bureaucracy that doesn’t allow you to work part time, effectively, and then punishes you for taking time off and having “gaps in your resume.” If you are licensed and have no marks against you, you shouldn’t be discriminated against for some perceived rustiness or some such thing. What’s the point of licensure otherwise? If you do that you’re getting into the cartel/racket territory of “maintenance of certification” – oh wait, it is a racket that they already impose on us.
JD doesn’t have this issue since he’s married, but people are checking out and not wanting to work as much, especially younger men, because they don’t have a traditional model of being married and working for the family, basically justifying the rat race since you have a wife at home and kids to give that reason to work for (ever). With the rise of feminism and a significantly altered culture, the very productive are checking out for traditional women in … other countries. You can not like that reality all you want, but it will remain the reality, and the economy will suffer as a result.
This reminds me of the idea “nothing sells like outrage”. I couldn’t take the article referenced seriously. Either Dillian has not done any due diligence or research or he is intentionally trying to upset FIRE people. In either case, I think it is best to ignore him.
The person who wrote that note to you sounds deranged. Why do they even care if some tiny minority of people have 50% savings rates and work 20 years instead of 40?
Jared Dillian’s piece is really funny and should not be taken too seriously. Let’s lighten up here.