Image credit: Fabio Comparelli on Unsplash

Tl;dr: If you are worried with what you could do if you don’t have your 9-5 job, I’m providing you two lists of suggestions and inspirations below. One is my own, another is curated from Reddit threads. I did not find any good list online to serve as inspiration for me so I hope someone would find this one helpful. This list does NOT contain anything related to traveling or ideas on starting a business, since there are other better resources for that. It is fine if you want to dabble a bit in each of the activity, but it should take you a decent amount of time to achieve the level of mastery seen in the resources for inspiration :) .

The need for a list of post-retirement activities for inspirations

If you are a follower of the FIRE movement and discuss it with people, you probably at some point have had a conversation similar to the following:

You: “I want to retire at 35 years old.”

Them: “What are you gonna do with your life???? You’ll get bored!!”

There are many ways to rebut to the critism above. Here I’m quickly mentioning a couple of ways that you can go about it:

  • The RE part is optional, you have the choice, that’s what matters.
  • Retiring from 9-5 job is not the same as sitting idle and rotting away.
  • The 9-5 job is not the only way to be productive/contributing to society
  • I’m bored right now at work.
  • Listing all the activities you would rather be doing instead of working.
  • etc etc

For the other rebuttals, there are many other resources that can explain and dive deeper much better than I can. However, with regards to the last point, I have not seen a good list of possible activities for early retirees outside of the obvious answers (opening your own business, exercising, reading, traveling, spend time with family). Although the exact post-retirement activities are highly specific to each person’s hobbies and preferences, seeing a list of fun, interesting, diverse, self-enriching activities can serve as inspiration to get the creative juice flowing so you can come up with your own activities. Therefore, I think seeing a good list can benefit everyone, from the FIRE nay-sayers to FIRE followers who believe that they won’t stop working until normal retirement age even if they are FI.

I’m sharing my own list and a list I compiled from two reddit threads (this and this). Hopefully, after reading this list, you will realize that while there are some things to consider when you “win the game too early”, being “bored” is a choice, and so is making work your entire identity.

DISCLAIMER: Yes, I acknowledge that there are people who are very passionate about what they do at their job, and it brings them genuine joy and purpose, and they believe that it’s their calling. However, I suspect that those who enjoy working 9-5 above anything else might not be the majority, or else this reddit thread would not exist, neither would this subreddit, nor this super popular book.

I love my job, every day, I get to learn new things about the biological world, push the limits of human knowledge, contribute to science and possible future therapies. My job as a researcher is extremely intellectually rewarding, I have ample autonomy to explore the scientific questions I’m interested in, and I’m surrounded with arguably some of the best minds in the world. However, the world just have so much to offer that I want to see/try/explore/learn them all. I truly believe that every day you are crafting your own human experience, and getting as many diverse experiences can make your story colorful.

My list

I think a Redditor articulated perfectly my thinking approach to this so I will just quote them here, since I think my list encapsulates their goal/mantra

My goal would really be to be some type of modern day renaissance man, where I could hop from hobby to hobby and establish a level of competence in each one.

Note 1: The links accompanied by the ideas are either my inspiration for the idea, elaboration of the idea, or an example of someone who’s already doing it.

Note 2: The document for this list was created on September 7th 2020 with the initial ideas. Since then, I have been adding slowly to it. I will occasionally bulk-update this list

Food

Become a food stylist:

Baking Biscuits: - The tweet that inspired me - Ella Hawkins (@ellamchawk) • Instagram photos and videos

Making custom cakes: - CUSTOM CAKES — Thirsty Whale Bakery

Jelly art: Siewheng83 on Instagram

Pancake art: Dancakes - The First Name in Pancake Art

Studying the science of food/cooking: - 2020 Science and Cooking Lecture Series - Harvard in the Community - Science & Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to Soft Matter Science (chemistry) | Harvard University - science-and-cooking-lecture-series - Chef vs. Science: The Ultimate Kitchen Challenge (TV Movie 2016) - IMDb

Attend Amaury Guichon dessert class: - Pastry Academy by Amaury Guichon | Start your new sweet career. Enroll now and join the next class at Pastry Academy by Amaury Guichon. - Amaury Guichon on instagram

Art

Languages

Science

  • Do life science research without worrying about the money
  • Do Aquaponics farm with family
  • Read books about behavior/criminal psychology, trying to read a person by their online presence and subconscious mannerism.
    • Inspiration: Show Criminal Minds on Netflix

Giving back

  • College counselor for Vietnamese kids
  • Do tourism to unexplored areas in Vietnam, US, China. Sustainable tourism
  • Write a book on ML introducing resources and high-level in mind map/application format, guiding the user through through the “don’t know what you don’t know” stage
  • Teach programming to prisoner via programs like The Last Mile
  • Consultant to tell people what to learn and where to learn it to be successful in tech (showing resources tailored to different learning styles)
    • Could make this into a newsletter where I’m just researching/learning stuff
    • Can be topics other than tech: Persuasion/negotiation, Real estate, causal inference, entrepreneur
  • Counseling for people who have dying family member/friend, both to help the dying die gracefully and for the living to process grief

Learn for the sake of learning

List curated from Reddit threads

  • Work on a farm
  • Hunting
  • Fishing
  • Car lift
  • ATV/MTB/Hiking trail
  • Robotics
  • Coaching Highschool sports
  • Weightlifting
  • Get PhD degree
  • Crochet
  • Homesteading
  • Get pilot license
  • Oil-painting and recording music
  • Sculpting
  • Play ice hockey
  • Kayaking
  • Explore wineries, become sommelier
  • Work at fancy hotel
  • Own a flower shop
  • Become cake decorator
  • Write novels
  • Leatherwork
  • Board game design
  • Rock climbing
  • Martial Arts
  • Home automation projects
  • Board games
  • Restoring vintage vehicles
  • Rifle/shooting

Final thoughts:

Hopefully these activities will keep you busy. Each of these activities can take a life time to master. If you want to be a dabbler, do a bit of each one without achieving mastery, that’s fine too!!! I also understand that some activities are not available to you because of age/family commitments/finance/preference. I would love to hear about what you come up with using this list as inspiration.

Finally, it’s also completely fine to be bored and do nothing!!! Sometimes, the “fast pace” lifestyle is over-glorified, making it seems like there’s only one definition of “a good life”, whatever that means. Don’t play games you don’t want to win. You can be like this guy who spend hours creating his card-throwing videos. I found his focus, commitment, and sheer will mesmerizing :)

If you want to share your thoughts with me on this issue, you can comment below, connect with me via Twitter, or shoot me an email at hoangthienan95@gmail.com