Ahhhhh. Lately the Financial Independence Retire Early (FIRE) movement has been getting some significant coverage in mainstream media. Don’t believe me? Check out some of these articles.
My friend Angela was covered by Business Insider
My Disney World buddy (and co-host of the first podcast I was ever on!) Gwen was profiled by the BBC
Forbes asked financial professionals whether the FIRE movement is right for their clients (this is probably the most even-handed FIRE article I’ve ever seen in major media because it doesn’t make everybody sound like a miser)
As with all things on the internet, there are tons of people commenting on these posts and questioning the concept. Not to mention the many people within the community who do the same.
Some people like to say it’s flat out impossible. Others like to say it’s only possible for people in different financial situations than their own. And many, many like to imagine that everybody in the movement is suffering and sacrificing to make it work. That’s largely because people like to focus on tiny details like brown bananas instead of major concepts like living in just-enough houses and buying just-enough cars.
My eyes are rolling into the back of my head right now.
But some people like to talk about how people in the FIRE movement are wasting their lives. As if, somehow, seeking financial independence is a bad thing. And one of the ways the non-trolly people like to express this thought is through the saying “Choose a job you love and you will never work a day in your life.”
Choose A Job You Love And You Will Never Work A Day In Your Life
It’s a nice saying, no? It gives off such a sense of control.
Too bad it’s completely false.
There are a lot of reasons why loving a job isn’t enough to make it not be work. That’s true if you are even lucky enough to find a job you love in the first place. It completely ignores all the people who aren’t so lucky.
Just to make sure I wasn’t the only sad sack who felt this way, I asked Twitter. Surprise! I’m not the only one who takes issue with this statement.
“Choose A Job You Love And You Will Never Have To Work A Day In Your Life”
True?
— Military Dollar (@Military_Dollar) November 11, 2018
91% of respondents – including some who love their jobs! – disagree with the statement.
Let’s explore this a little more.
All jobs require aspects you aren’t going to love
I love my job. Guys, it’s hard to explain it fully but I Love My Job. I get to do cool things and meet interesting people and play with expensive toys and go to far off places and the American taxpayer pays me to do all of that. Pays me a lot, actually.
Last week I went TDY (that’s a work trip, civilians) and got to work on a project for my career field that has me pumped. So pumped I called my boss afterward to tell him how excited I am. So pumped that even though I’m 14+ years into my career and at this point seen as somewhat of an expert, I kinda-sorta-maybe want to go back through our initial training just to see what it’s like for the new kids. I am excited, yo.
But it’s still a job, and it’s still work
I have to wear an outfit each day that, while I’m proud to wear it, is awful. I’m basically wearing a shapeless canvas sack every day. It’s a sack I love, and that I will keep always. It’s a sack deeply embedded with memories and pride. But it’s a not-very-comfy sack. I’d much rather choose what to wear. I work to pay for an outfit I don’t even like.
I start work at 0730 every morning and usually don’t leave until after 1730…sometimes long after. And the 0730 start at this job isn’t by any means the earliest I’ve ever been scheduled. I’ve had assignments where I started at 0630, or even earlier. I’ve had jobs where I worked 12 hour days at a minimum. Heck, I had one long stretch where 18 hour days were the norm. My job has no chill about the fact that I am not a morning person, or that I might have other things to do. I put in long hours at work.
I have to deal with email. Oh, the email. It’s a bane, right? Hundreds of emails every single day, and usually I don’t even need to be on them. But I still get sent the emails. And I still have to perform inbox triage. I hate that part especially. I do annoying work.
So yeah, my job is work that I don’t love every single moment of. No matter how much I love it, it’s still work.
What if the job you love doesn’t pay enough?
There’s another saying: “Do what you love and the money will follow.”
Um, no. In what world is it that easy?
I know a lot of people whose favorite job in the world is raising their children. Awesome, right? It’s such important work!
But the (money-based) pay is absolute crap.
Imagine if everybody who wanted to stay home to raise their kids did so. Think about the median income in this country. It would plummet!
Now think about the other things people love to do that don’t pay well. Do you think all the artistic types who would rather paint or write music all day are rolling in the dough?
If you find a job that you absolutely adore every moment of that doesn’t pay enough, you are going to have to find another way to cover your bills. You are going to work. That’s just how it works.
And if you have enough money to cover your bills and you are just doing whatever your heart desires because you love it, well, that’s an avocation. One might even say you are retired! 😉
What if you can’t get the job you want?
Okay, so let’s pretend that there are jobs out there that are both 100% fun/satisfying and pay well. You never have to do a single thing you don’t like to do.
Well, what are the chances you are going to get that job?
I mean such a job is going to be pretty rare, right? So there is going to be a lot of competition for it.
You might be thinking to yourself “well not everybody is going to love the same job” and you’d be right. But I think we can all agree that some jobs are more desirable than others. That’s not a comment on job worthiness – it’s a comment on human nature. We (humans) like some things more than others. #science
You know what job gets tons of interest? Astronauts. Thousands of people apply for each astronaut candidate opening. I don’t see similarly competitive programs for, well, any job.
Talk to an astronaut. It’s still tough, tough work.
Not every job is going to inspire love
Speaking of jobs that don’t inspire tons of interest…
Yeah, there are going to be some jobs that people don’t dream about as kids. Maybe one or two kids. And maybe there are a few people who like those jobs…for awhile.
But do you really think anybody aspires to be a sign spinner for an entire career? Constantly moving and dancing in the heat and cold while being honked at and exposed to fumes?
Do you think that every garbage person wakes up in the morning pumped to go pick up people’s trash? I’m not saying it’s a bad job. I am so, so grateful for modern sanitation and the people who make it happen! But I’m willing to bet if you asked 10 of them, at least 9 would say they do the job because it pays decently without the need for a degree.
How about incredibly high stress jobs? Things like Wall Street brokers. Do you think people would continue to do those jobs if they were making $40,000/year with no opportunity for advancement? No! They do it because it pays big bucks.
So, what? We are going to tell people to find a job they love so they never have to work…and then all those who aren’t doing something they love are just some poor saps? Really? And our advice to them is just keep looking for a job they love instead of, I dunno, doing something that makes work optional?
Work is still work
C’mon, now. We all know that work is work. Whether you are doing it for pay or not. Whether you love it or not. Doing something you love doesn’t mean it’s not work.
So since we know that work is work, why does anybody persist in the “Choose a job you love” line? Am I supposed to forget that I don’t like wearing rough canvas just because I got to operate a cool piece of equipment? Do the fun TDYs make the emails go away?
(note: they do not)
Meanwhile, we have people that are taking charge of their lives and setting up their finances so that they can choose what kind of work they want to do on any given day. If that means going into the office, yay! If it means watching Netflix all day, go for it!
Find a Job You Love
So yes! Find a job you love…if you can. Working a job you love is amazing. At least find one you don’t hate. No paycheck is worth absolutely destroying your morale and mental health.
(line up another job first if quitting will leave you in a bad financial position)
But loving your job shouldn’t stop you from pursuing financial independence. And people really need to stop recommending it in place of financial independence.
Financial independence is a good goal for everyone. Everybody should be striving to free themselves from the need to work for pay, no matter how much they enjoy their job. Once you reach financial independence, you actually get to do only the things you love, if that’s what you choose to do. How great is that?
Love my job, plan to continue to work once I reach FI, but it is still a freaking job. Sure maybe some day I can get rid of the parts I don’t like, but there are parts I don’t love while I’m doing them that I am freaking proud of once I’ve done them. The big picture is absolutely worth it even if there is a day – or week – where it’s not so much fun. The same is true for professional athletes, and they freaking play a sport of a living.
Funny how many people brought up pro athletes…
Good stuff. It’s tangential advice to what Cal Newport says when he loathes the statement “follow your passion”. It assume first that you have a huge passion to follow, and second that you’ll find a job where every aspect of the day to day is awesome. Good luck
Even pro baseball and football players hate parts of their jobs, like talking to the media and some kinds of training. Nothings perfect.
Lastly, I would add that another reason the “find a job you love” is a bullcrap sentiment is that we all change, and probably will many times in our lives. I used to friggin love my job at one point. Then the love slowly wilted away and my desires moved on to other things that I cannot easily get a job in. So now I’m FI and trying to follow those things, to be more happy. That’s called life.
Excellent point! And another great reason to strive for FI 😁
How I love this post!
I’m a secondary teacher. I love the actual time spent in the classroom. Except when I have 9J for English. Can’t wait for December 14 when I get rid of them from my life.
The meetings…Ugh. Yard duty isn’t so bad I guess, (except when it rains or it’s over 40C).
I hate having to get up at 6 to leave by 7 to get a car park in the teachers car park.
On balance, I love my job. Do I wish that I was Fat Fi so I could walk away right now?
Hell yes.
I’m not naturally a morning person and getting up at 6am every day is probably the hardest part of working. I look forward to not doing that anymore.
Perfectly said! Even if you work at a place you love there is still the day to day requirements which can bog you down. Having a cushion to fall back on will take the pressure off of “having” to work which helps with the stress tremendously!
Absolutely!
This is a really good article! I LOVE my job, and I can’t wait to retire!
Isn’t that possible?
A good percentage of the job is really cool stuff. Sometimes I have to pinch myself to see if I’m really getting paid for this.
Then sometimes, reality sets in, and I realize I don’t have control of my time. Bosses have a lot of say over what I do, and I put up with a lot of B.S. that I don’t want to.
Nothing wrong with being financially independent, and only working when and where you want. I think it’s called F-U money, right?
Yep!
I went to the Greece Chautauqua and the presentation by Kristy of Millenial Revolution was on the concept of not following your passion — until later. Until you build your “FI armor”. Her point is similar to yours. Your passion might not pay well, it might have only a few jobs available (like your astronaut example) and you might not be good enough to be that chosen one, people might ridicule your passion. All of these issues are gone if you pursue it AFTER you reach FI.
I personally quit my engineering job 8 years ago, and I have coined a term for it that I call “Freeployed”. The work I do now varies as my passions change, and I don’t care if it makes any money.
I love that idea!
Viva la Freeployed!
Excellent! It is so true. Even when making a hobby into a job it still is work. Work is still work. I agree I think everyone should be striving for financial independence.
I’ve always felt this way personally, but others swear they love their jobs so much they’d do it for free. I’m happy for you if that’s true but I don’t like doing anything enough to ENJOY doing it full time as a job.
The example I use is that like many young kids I wanted to be a baseball player when I grew up. Now that I know better as an adult, there’s no effing way I’d want to practice the minutiae of baseball all day every day, including during the off-season. Not to mention the agents, contracts, threats of trades uprooting your life, injuries, etc.
I’ll just stay here in my comfy warm cubicle and continue doing my “good enough” job for now.
::secret voice:: I actually would do my job for free. At least for awhile.
That being said, volunteer work that you willingly do for free is also still work!
And yeah, being a professional athlete sounds awful. I like to bake and people always used to ask me if I was going to become a baker. No. That sounds awful. I’d get fat and the activity I do to relax after work would turn into work. Why would I want that?
Exactly. Once that fun activity becomes a “job” it almost automatically ceases to be fun, because of the built in requirements or constraints of jobs (ie, schedules and emails, to name a few if your good examples). Once FI, people are free to do what they want, when they want, and however much they want. With the usual job constraints lifted, even work can be fun because it’s now on your terms and if it ceases to be fun you can just stop (as opposed to a job, which most people do because they need the money).
While I didn’t vote in the twitter poll you can add me to love my job, but no. I love this post!
For the most part, I enjoy my career and working hard but when I learned about the FIRE movement I was blown away. I mean blown away! Firstly, I was near the end of my debt pay off journey so building wealth was actually within grasp. Secondly, I was experiencing freedom (from addiction & money problems) and loving it. The freedom that seems to come with financial independence sounded all the more attractive.
Sure, choose a job you love but also go after financial independence because why not place yourself in a position to have choices.
Well done, MD, well done.
Thanks Deanna!
And yes, real choices are so rare and valuable! Why not get those you can?
Yes, yes, yes! I am also a person who loves her job and has a lot of the perks people are jealous of (Mondays off, lots of flexibility and a fantastic boss) but there are still days I hate it. That’s not weird. I bet if you ask any of the early retirees they’ll easily be able to come up with a few things that make their lives not 100% ideal. That’s life folks! You’re allowed to love yoir job and still sometimes hate it.
Mondays off??? 😲
I think this is so true and it’s true about everything in life. You may love to cook, but not like cleaning the dishes after the meal is eaten. You may love your children, but not love potty training them or picking up their toys. With everything in life there is a give and take, so why do people think it will be any different with their careers. Nothing is perfectly ideal and work is work no matter how you spin it. That said it’s great if you can enjoy the majority of the tasks you need to work on day after day. That is true of work and life outside of it.
I love solving problems, spreadsheets and coordinating activities. Which I do everyday as part of my job. But with each of those, there’s inevitably high stress periods. Like wake up at night with fast heart rate. And what about challenge? Do the same thing long enough, most people get bored. It’s normal.
What’s wrong having a regular job to pay the bills, that isn’t special but is useful to society? To me that’s better than a toxic work environment or something that completely is against your values.
Finding a way to make a career out of what you love is awesome. But pushing this concept without a dose of reality can be harmful. This has long been a pet peeve of mine. Mostly it breeds discontent when otherwise someone would’ve maybe not loved their job, but had pride, satisfaction in a pay check and fulfilled their passions off hours.
Preach!!
I am SO GLAD there’s an alternative to “follow your passion” or “choose a job you love” because NOPE. FI sounds like a way better option anyway!
You need to find a job that pays 6 figures to hike with dogs. Somebody find Erin THAT job.
Work is life. You should have balance life, work family,friends and hobby. Its the best.
Greeting from Sweden 🙂 a dentist dividend investor 😉
I enjoyed the reality check you brought in this article. Work is still work even if it’s work that you absolutely love. It’s true a lot of times people are chasing a pipe dream because they think that they have to love their work in order to be happy or financially wealthy. This was a well-thought out blog article! Thanks for sharing!
On the one hand I really do love my job and will continue to do so regardless of fi all else stays the same.
On the other I believe you missed the most important issue . Things change. A boss can make or break a job. Your likes could change. You could get sick. I guess my point is always have a backup plan.
I think the lesson people have brought up about pro athletes feeling like they have a grind at times speaks more to human psychology and the human condition than whether or not any particular career is lovable.
We tend to hate losing things, but we quickly normalize and lose our appreciation for things we have. I imagine most of us do this even with jobs we may have once been excited about. If you’re starting out in your career and taking minimum wage service jobs to get by, no one expects you to be in your dream vocation, but where you go from there and how you feel about it are choices you get to make.
That’s not to say we can all land jobs we love. It’s not even to say the concept of a ‘job’ is lovable. =)
I work as many hours as I want.
I improve others quality of life.
I choose who I work with.
I’m paid well even though money is not my driver.. it is simply the outcome from doing a job well done.
I have the opportunity to work from anywhere.
I don’t think you have to love your job. But for me I have to find it rewarding and challenging and want to give it my best. When those things aren’t happening, that’s a signal for me that something is wrong.
I like a job that keeps you busy during the day. It’s amazing how fast time flies by when you’re working all the time. I don’t think you have to love your job, but having a job with a low amount of responsibilities can be soooooooooooo boring!
Great article! Just what I needed today! I just left a job that I loved that paid $13 per hour. Fun job, but the bills gotta be paid. I have returned to the industry that I am trained in which pays better but is not constant ‘fun.’ I choose to remind myself of the good reasons why I made this choice and of the people that I am serving. There is satisfaction in that.
The social aspect I miss about the prior job (100 staff members then versus 3 now) I can replicate in my personal life by spending more time with friends and family and joining social groups that appeal to my interests. I can ask myself, ‘What did you like to do when you were a kid?’ and add these things back into my life.
Thanks again and have a wonderful day!
I worked hard and went to college for 8 years to get a job I loved that was still hard and a job though. Then I worked hard in that job for another 7 years and somehow lucked into a job in the same field with another organization that pays well, is prestigious, and has basically no parts I don’t like. So for me, I was very fortunate to land that perfect job, but it took 16 years of hard work and then a BUNCH of luck at the end there. I could have very easily did 25 years at the first job that I loved but would have liked to retire. Now they are going to have to fire me for mental incompetency before I stop doing this LOL.
I agree it’s irresponsible to tell people the perfect job is out there for them when there are factors outside of many people’s control that will determine if they find a perfect job or not.
The problem is that you will never do only what you love. There are difficult and unlovable aspects of any job. The main thing is to find a job that you know how to do and that doesn’t depress you 🙂
I’m self-employed and my job (which I do as an independent contractor) is fun, funny, and flexible. Not high-paid, but decent. 20% of what I do is meh … like the opposite of the Pareto Principle. I have done it digital nomad style. And if I were FI, I’d still do it. But it’s not my passion. So classify that any way you want.
Not all passions should be monetized. It taints the pleasure with obligation.