[hindsightRegret]

You can have a job and still be free. The two are not mutually exclusive. OP's point is that you shouldn't slave away the prime years of your life saving for the dream of FIRE on some beach, island, or etc.

I think the idea that you'll be so much happier once you're on that beach than you are now is equally as insane as conspicuous consumption.

[twiceaday]

Having a job is not relevant. It's about _requiring_ a salary. If every single person _had_ to work but you removed the financial incentive almost nobody would do their exact current duties or work their exact current hours. They would switch things to be happier. The more of a financial incentive there is the harder it is to make that switch. And the entire point is that you can lessen the financial incentive by lowering your ongoing costs and you can completely eliminate it sooner by saving and investing. Imagining a straw-man that slaves away and saves too much is not helpful to anybody except as a 'gotcha, your rule-of-thumb life advice is wrong in one case' pedantry. It seems ridiculous in a context where seemingly nobody saves money or plans for retirement. Nobody over-saves. This is made-up smug-bait peddled to those who are far from saving too much and want to feel good about it. "Can you believe this guy cuts his own hair? Scoff!"

Your last sentence is also a straw-man. You are attempting to debunk what constitutes a click-bait headline. Nobody will defend that ridiculous, oversimplified, universally-extended argument. What is even your point? The full statement requires so many variables to fully qualify, what truth are you attempting to convey?

[hellisothers]

I think hindsight’s and the OP’s point is to not over index one way or the other. You can optimize for happiness now and very likely suffer later or optimize for probably happiness later and suffer now or pick somewhere in between. I agree that a lot of the discussion from the FIRE cohort sounds like you should suffer now for rewards later with an almost religious zeal.