[saganus]

Along those lines, one of the things that I still struggle with after 20+ years of working, is squaring this feeling of not working enough/earn enough money to have a comfortable retirement, while at the same time trying to live my life and not just work myself until death (very original, I know).

So I've always had this conflict with the saying that goes something like "nobody regrets not working more, while in their deathbed".

The thing is... I'm pretty sure lots of people actually do, e.g. if they didn't manage to do well enough to have a comfortable retirement, or leave their children in a good place.

So sure, I'd love to spend my money traveling and enjoying the best years of my life... but I also see my parents struggling to get by with retirement funds that are suboptimal and I fear that I am not doing all I can to avoid the same fate.

Hopefully I'll be able to make sense of this before it's too late.

[didibus]

I normally heard "nobody regrets not working more" in the context of work that has bad or no ROI.

For example, lots of people work themselves to burnout by not taking all their vacations, returning to work very soon after their child is born out of fear of falling behind, working extra late or weekends from peer pressure from their boss/peers, etc. Most of which won't result in additional pay, promotion, and might not even help advance your career.

There's this other addage I heard that I quite like:

"Work harder on yourself than at your job. Invest in yourself, not in your job."

The idea is, don't spend your energy on your current job stupidly, instead spend that effort trying to find a better job, or learning skills that are more valuable, in keeping yourself relevant, etc.

I feel taken together, it forms the basis of how to balance work/life so that work can build up to a good retirement, allowing you to enjoy life in your later years, but also making time in the present to enjoy life in your current and younger years.

[saganus]

That definitely makes sense. However I do have heard it in the context of "hey, enjoy life more!".

Which I agree with but it's also a reality that you need to think about your future/retirement and it's a hard balance to make, especially if you live in a country with a poor healthcare system and lacking other social nets.

[scns]

Read this in a management magazine:

One third of retiring managers die quickly thereafter. The socond third finds a hobby and pursues it with the same ambition until everyone they know got gifted a perfect ship in a bottle and they need a new way to spend their time. One third keeps working.

[Edit] add header

[hosteur]

That’s just sad.

[scns]

That is a judgment on your part. There is no retirement in nature. If you keep doing what you love when you are "retired", it will be to your benefit. Both my parents teach, my father does something he likes for the first time i think. Could call it sad but why?

[ornornor]

Obviously some professions like teaching, medicine, and a few others are different because they actually benefit society. As opposed to middle managers in a megacorp only working hard to make anonymous shareholders richer. When that guy is gone, they’ll be replaced within a couple of weeks and forgotten as they were just a cog. That’s when it’s sad to keep working imho.

[Swizec]

Few people regret not working more.

Almost everyone regrets not having achieved more.

[KronisLV]

> Few people regret not working more.

For what it's worth, working more would build a habit of doing so. A good work ethic would mean that you need a bit less motivation or discipline to get things done, due to it basically being just something you do.

It doesn't have to be just for some corporation, but also when you're trying to build some personal project, especially the ones that might get a bit bigger (writing your own blog engine or static site generator, maybe even a game engine, or planting crops or building a shed for all I care). Sometimes there won't be many shortcuts to success, but just boring slog of legwork that needs to be done.

In that regard, I definitely regret not working more, because I still need to rely on motivation, which is fleeting, or discipline, which is unpleasant, all just to get through things sometimes, even when I take care of myself in every other way (sleep schedule, nutrition, activities, mental health).

As for the whole retirement aspect, sadly I don't have answers for that, the state of the economy is concerning sometimes.

[badpun]

> Almost everyone regrets not having achieved more.

Depends on the culture. This my be true in the US, but most other cultures aren't as obsessed with achieving.

[Swizec]

You get to define "achievement" however you want here. It can mean spending more time with kids, if that's what you care about!

[moffkalast]

Eh you gotta curb your expectations with 8 billion people alive trying to out-achieve you every single moment.

[achenet]

it's not a zero sum game or a competition though.

You can make beautiful music, and someone else can create a beautiful choreography for it... their achievement will probably increase your joy, not decrease it.

[moffkalast]

To some degree yes, but after a while there are so many creators that it's just noise and nobody can really stand out unless they're truly beyond exceptional. So in that sense it is more of a zero sum game in practice.

Take Steam for example. After Greenlight was superseded by Direct and you now only need $100 to get on the platform it's practically drowning in games, making for near zero discoverability.

But especially in terms of idk, government jobs or certain positions at a specific company it's usually a fixed number of seats that will be filled from a large pool of people, making it a completely zero sum game. There can only be one president of a country at a time and a fixed number of them during your lifespan. What are you gonna do, make a new country?

[mejutoco]

> What are you gonna do, make a new country?

If technically you want to be the Prince of a constitutional monarchy, it might work (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand)

[moffkalast]

Ngl I have always wondered how far one would get if they just started dredging sand onto an international waters seamount and made a completely new island, then declared it a micronation. In theory there should be a lot of market interest with gambling, server hosting and the like. Sealand still has the problem of actually being on built by and stands on Britain's territory.

In all realness it would probably take about 10 minutes before the US navy rolls up like "open the country, stop having it be closed" and declared it theirs. VLS missiles will continue launching until morale improves and all that.

[danielmarkbruce]

fwiw i think more people struggle with this tradeoff than it seems, and more people question the "nobody regrets... " quote. You are far from alone.