I find myself thinking about retirement a lot recently, especially when talking to family members. I also don’t think about retirement at the age of 60+. I have been following discussions about FIRE on Reddit for a while now. What I can’t point my finger at is what to do even if I get there. That’s a big puzzle in my mind.
When I think of retirement, I don’t want to stop working or travel the world or indefinite leisure. I feel like I want to work, but not in a stressful job, maybe 2–3 days each week doing something I can enjoy. I’ve been lecturing for a while; maybe I still continue to do so in my home country, Türkiye. Though the rapid rise of AI leaves me questioning how higher education and technical skills will evolve in the future.
Back to the issue at hand, I wonder how others are finding retirement. We talked about retirement in our book, but we never thought about what comes next after it. My dad retired without a job and he really got bored. I don’t want to be there.
I’d like to find something that is meaningfully challenging without carrying the same level of stress. I also don’t think I want to stay in tech. I built my career here, but I’ve always wanted to spend more time around people outside the industry. I like geeks and I enjoy technical discussions, but after a while the same conversations start to narrow rather than broaden my perspective.
Retirement Chose Me
What Am I Actually Optimizing?
The answer is a healthy and meaningful life. That’s probably something like: health + meaningful effort + relationships + autonomy + curiosity − chronic stress.
| Factor | Why it belongs |
|---|---|
| Health | Without it, the rest has limited value. |
| Meaningful effort | People still need challenge, structure, and a sense of usefulness. |
| Relationships | Social connection is one of the strongest recurring contributors to wellbeing. |
| Autonomy | Control over time and choices matters as much as reducing workload. |
| Curiosity | Learning and novelty keep life from narrowing into routine. |
| Chronic stress | It erodes health, relationships, attention, and enjoyment at the same time. |
The high-paying job is the problem. It comes with indefinite stress, timelines, pressure, management changes, and people issues. This is true even if you own the business. That does not remove the pressure; you still have a boardroom to answer to. I think this formula changes how I think about FIRE in general. I do not necessarily need enough money to never work again. I simply need enough freedom to stay happily busy, while making enough to cover my family’s basic needs and keep a cushion.
That is also why I sometimes think going back to being an IC, perhaps a few levels down, could be interesting. You would still get the work itself without carrying quite as much organizational responsibility. But I am not entirely sure it solves the problem completely. I can't unsee organizational drama at this point.
Maybe I’m also making a mistake by looking for one job to replace the current one. Perhaps there doesn’t need to be one. A couple of days teaching, some writing, something outside tech, maybe some community work. If my objective isn't high income anymore, I can split my time across different kinds of work instead of trying to find one new career.
Maybe Retirement Optimizes the Wrong Number
I think financial independence can be important, but I guess you might not need to delay your retirement because you haven’t completely achieved independence. Whatever you’re doing for work might be enough to keep you going. That’s why people came up with Coast or Barista FIRE.
Not having to work might not be good psychologically. That’s why I think early retirement optimizes the wrong number in some way. Work gives you a lot of structure, social connections, and a sense of belonging. The problem in my eyes is the level of stress. High-paying jobs give you a lot of stress, which can be a major deteriorating factor for health and longevity.
That’s why I think not needing money might not be the useful threshold. Perhaps, the useful threshold is getting to the point where you no longer need a stressful career to sustain your life.
Work Is Doing More Than Paying You
Work gives you somewhere to go, problems to solve and people who expect something from you. There is probably an identity part to this as well. I’ve spent a large part of my adult life building a career, and you get used to having an answer when people ask what you do. I don’t think I care much about title or status anymore, but I might still underestimate how much structure that identity gives me.
That’s why fully getting out of work does not necessarily feel like a good idea to me. The other aspect, I think, is the freedom to spend time with loved ones. However, kids or other family members become independent, and you can still get into a situation where you actually don’t have enough people around to take care of or spend meaningful time with.
The strange thing is that the freedom to spend time with people does not automatically mean those people will have the same freedom at the same time.
Retirement Is Not Only About Me
The other aspect is supporting the people around you, family or extended family. Early retirement optimizes for you to get out, but what happens when people need you in day-to-day life? I hear from my colleagues now that their adult kids don’t work. That had never crossed my mind as an issue, but now, if we have fewer jobs, what happens to that aspect?
That makes the financial question harder as well. I am not necessarily trying to fund anyone’s permanent leisure. I want people around me to be resilient against life independently. Yet, it might be even harder to create enough resilience for a family whose needs I cannot predict yet.
Community Might Be the Harder Problem
The other aspect I think of is community. When you work, you have people around you that you work with. When you retire, you need to have a community. Though, I don’t want horse racing around me. I want to be chill and not compare things all the time. I’ve already seen people surpass me in many ways, so that is not a meaningful angle for me. You need to do better than yourself, not other people. Hence, I want people who share a similar sentiment. So how do I build such a community, and where?
I’ve been outside of Türkiye for a long time, so even if I go back, which is a plan, how do I find a community? I can’t just assume the old one will still be there waiting for me. People move on, friendships change, and I’ve changed too. Work solves some of this without you thinking about it because you keep seeing the same people and have something in common to talk about. If I leave that behind, I probably need to create that structure somehow. Maybe teaching helps. Maybe some local groups. I don’t know yet, but I think this part is much more important than I used to think.
Leave Room for the Person I will Become
I don’t think I need to know today what I’ll want to do in my fifties. That version of me will have different interests, different family responsibilities, perhaps live in a different place, and certainly face a different job market. What I can do now is avoid making all of his choices for him. Build enough financial cushion that a high-paying job is no longer mandatory. Keep my health! Keep teaching and trying things outside tech. Stay close enough to people that work is not my only source of community.
I might still choose to work a lot. I might teach two days a week. I might find something I have never considered yet. The useful goal, then, is probably not to predict retirement correctly. It is to reach a point where getting the prediction wrong becomes cheap. I don’t need to know what I’ll want in my fifties. I need to make sure the version of me who gets there still has room to choose.