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 After Greenlight was superseded by Direct and you now only need $100 to get on the platform it's practically drowning in games, making for near zero discoverability.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