Missing Out

In my last few posts, I reflected on the ups and downs of my post-FIREing life. Dear Reader, you and I laughed a little at those reflections. And we cried. It was as boring emotional as it was tedious insightful. 

Well, as if all that wasn’t enough I’m still feeling a little reflective. So, I thought I’d cap it all off by adding my thoughts on things I don’t miss about working full time in my former profession. And a few things that I do miss. . . .  But not really.

Having consumed lotsa content by others on the sunny side of FIRE, I’ve found that I’m not alone in most of these sentiments. So, sure, everything on this blog the focus of this blog post is far from original. But I thought I’d write it anyway. Because while I thought some or most of these things would ultimately come to pass, I did entertain doubts. Maybe I’d feel different than your av-er-age bear FIRE blogger. So, if you’re aiming to FIRE, maybe you’ll find this helpful. And if you’ve FIREd already and share my thoughts, maybe you’ll be comforted by having found a kindred spirit. 

Let’s proceed, shall we?

Morning glory

Among the biggest things I don’t miss have to do with mornings. First, as I’ve previously explained, now that I have no hard a wake-up time on weekdays, I’m getting more sleep time in the aggregate. Having been sleep deprived for decades, this has been invaluable. So, hard wake-up times? Yeah, I don’t miss those one bit.

But the biggest thing I don’t miss from pre-FIRE weekday mornings have to do with my phone. First, I feel no work-related compulsion to check it when I wake up. That’s not to say that I don’t look at my phone when I wake up. I do. But the prompt now is to catch up on the news, which is something I love to do. 

But far more, I don’t miss the severe physiological effects that came from seeing and reading a work-related email during that check in. Or, far worse, of seeing several of those emails. Those emails would serve as caustic acid on any grogginess I might’ve been feeling upon waking and I’d all but bolt out of bed, my mind racing and driving me with the force of a thousand horses to get to my computer to start working (and at worst, triaging some situation). 

Worst of all was when this would happen on a Monday or Friday. I’m not sure which was worse. If a Monday, it’d feel as if I were an Olympic sprinter bolting out of the blocks, going from 0 mph to top speed in an instant. If a Friday, it’d feel not only at least like my Friday wouldn’t be relatively leisurely, but that my weekend would be compromised or ruined, either because I’d have to do time-sensitive work or because I knew I’d be thinking way more about work than I otherwise would.

I do not miss these morning things, Sam I am.

Chain email 

By the end of my full-time working days, I’d gotten to the point where I dreaded receiving emails. Every time I’d get a notification of an email, my heart would race a bit in anticipation about its contents. It got so bad that I dreaded receiving any email, whether work-related or personal. Heck, if I’m being honest, I still haven’t completely gotten over this. 

Notwithstanding this residual effect, I’m now infinitely comforted by the fact that I know that whatever email I receive isn’t work-related. So, the physiological effect of receiving an email has become far less severe. Not surprisingly, the exceptions have come during the times I’ve taken on contract gigs. It’s a big reason for my having decided that I’m done taking on that work.

Bossypants

I also don’t miss having a boss, or a client contact functioning as one. By the end of my full-time career, I’d gotten to the point where I’d grit my teeth every time I was given an assignment. Now, in fairness to my bosses and client contacts, they weren’t doing anything unreasonable. They needed something done, I was a/the person whose job it was to do that work, and they therefore sensibly delegated the task to me. 

Rational, right? Absolutely. 

But still the teeth-gritting. That was no small reason that I sensed that I was either burnt/burning out or that it was time to quit my job. Or both. 

I also don’t miss bosses/client contacts dictating my schedule. I can’t tell you, Dear Reader, how liberating I find it to be able to set my own schedule. I’d figured I’d like this well enough. But frankly, I’ve found I love it.

Sure, I have a part-time job with set hours, and I do gig and contract work, for which I must dedicate time. But all of this is optional work, for which I all but completely set my schedule. There’s no more asking for time off. Or any reticence about taking “too much” time off. Or caring about the consequences of how much time I plan to take off.

So, bosses/client contacts, I don’t miss ’em.

Time bum

Lotsa people who’ve FIREd find that they don’t know how they ever had time for a full-time job. That is, that they’re so busy doing (fun) stuff, they can’t imagine also having to work. 

I don’t entirely share this sentiment. For one thing, because I pointedly don’t overschedule myself, generally following a leisurely pace. I see no reason to make changes. 

That said, because I do perform actual income-generating work, my days aren’t always entirely my own to do with as I please. But, as I intimated above, this is a mindful choice.

While, strictly speaking, I am sacrificing my free time, it rarely feels like a sacrifice. So, it might as well not really be one. And I sure as heck can get done just about everything I want/need to complete in my personal life. And go on time-consuming larks, pursue whims, or schedule things last minute regardless of the time element. 

A missy situation

There are a few things that I do miss from my working days tho. None at all so much that I have an iota of desire to reverse course. But still. 

For one thing, I miss working with coworkers whom I respected and admired as much for their intellect, work ethic, willingness to listen to and help me when necessary, work product, and camaraderie, as because they were genuinely good people. It was an equal privilege to collaborate on projects with these folks as to just shoot the breeze with them. 

To a far lesser extent, I miss the intellectual challenge and/or stimulation that came from working on certain projects. Figuring out how to get from Point A to Point B and then doing the required work and seeing the result brought some satisfaction. But I now get a similar mental fix from the intellectually stimulating content that I consume. Sure, I consumed lotsa that content while working full time. But not as much as I do now. 

To an even lesser extent, I miss the schedule I had with my full-time job. I had a pretty set wake-up time and working hours and workdays. But what I found that I actually liked was the schedule as it existed on paper and in a vacuum. That’s because not only did my actual hours of work often negatively deviate from the theoretical schedule, but even when “off the clock,” I often thought about work. Which pretty much functioned to make a mockery of the paper on which the schedule was metaphorically written on. Anyway, I am and always have been good about creating a schedule for myself outside of work. Regardless, as I still do perform some work and have other set obligations, the anal side of me gets its fix by way of a schedule covering part of the week anyway. 

Another thing I kinda, sorta, maybe but not really miss is having work serve as a common bond between me and the working stiffs in my life, which still is the vast majority of people I know. While I used to be able to gripe about my job with people, and they do the same, we no longer share this common bond. And while these other people feel tied to their job (whether they want to or not) as I once did, I now completely don’t.

On the flipside, I now think, and want to chat, about all sorts of things I want to (and can) do that are all but fanciful, pie-in-the-sky for these other people. Thank goodness for my FIRE community friends whom I can have these conversations with. 

Which brings up another difference between me and the working-stiffs in my life. I can and want to use my time for fun stuff. They can’t. So, our schedules often are unaligned. It’s a good thing that I don’t seem to have a limit on how much alone time I can take. I’d imagine that people unlike me in that sense might feel lonely.

And in the end . . . 

So, sure, there are some things I guess that I miss about my full-time job and working career. But, again, not really. But the things I don’t miss? Man, I rrreeeaaallllyyy don’t miss them. And ain’t no one who’ll be able to change my mind about that.