If you didn’t have to work what would you be doing

The older I get, the more I realise how little time I have left and the more I resent having to waste my time earning a living. And I don't even have an awful job, just one I'm not terribly interested in. I'd be very happy not working, I'd write rent a cottage in the south of France and write a novel.

Music.

x-post

Almost exactly the same. And in my case, there’s a lot of late night “retirement maths”: doing the same sums over and over again to try to see if I could retire at 62,63,64? … with a sense that time is ticking away.

1) Travel. First stop Borneo to see the tangs then literally everywhere else I've ever wanted to go and haven't been yet. Of course this happens in the universe where I not only don't have to work but also have unlimited funds.

2) I do get bored and stir crazy easily. This even happens the one day a week I wfh regularly lol. I wouldn't be able to do nothing for more than a few weeks. I think I'd:

- volunteer
- make art - similar to somone's gas station signs - I've wanted to do similar for years with retro neon sinage so things like that
- take an intensive German immersion class so I could become fluent once and for all
- take up the violin again

Not having to work but still needing to make some money to be able to do fun things is the more interesting question. If my mortgage was paid off I'd probably take a 50% pay cut if it meant that was pay for life from doing something I love with complete control.

was made redundant 6 years ago.
decided that was me done with the working life.
and as has been mentioned before, after a while, it has become surprisingly easy to fill a day with very little.
get up at 9, breakfast, chores, music, read news/books/comics,
lunch at 1pm, watch a tv show i am into, go for a walk.
call my mum at 4:30,
sort food at 5:00.
then its the evening with tv/reading/music etc.
i am a homebod, and so find it very easy to just kick back here and dig around my digital archive rediscovering albums i have forgotten about.

I think the experience of recent "extended hard covid lockdown" (mentioned by dmac above) has given me the horrors for any kind of "homebody life", even though that's the most likely outcome for me of not working.

Catch up on my unread books and unlistened-to albums.

I would sleep more than 4 or 5 hours a day, that's for sure.

Borneo a top 3 bucket list destination for me as well

I have 2 answers depending on whether I have barely enough money to quit work or enormous piles of lottery winnings.

If the former, pretty much what I do most of the time now: read, listen to music, experiment in the kitchen on interesting food and drink.

If the latter, I'd travel more and check out restaurants and bars I've read about. But also build myself something like Kitchen Stadium (+ Bar Stadium) for when I'm at home.

Contemplating this question has made me realise just how deeply tied to the capitalist mindset my brain really is

With certain assets and time afforded to me, I would likely do what I hope to do with my current life-process: own a house, own a car, pay off certain debts of certain friends, assist my nieces and nephews with their post-secondary tuition, employ certain services for my own comfort/betterment (cleaning person, gardener, trainer, better medical and dental)

Up to a personal net worth of, say, $50m, I still can't imagine myself "not working". Any serious amount of cash I would likely move into executive production on films, emerging filmmakers and established-filmmakers-who-would-benefit-from-larger-budgets (Peter Strickland, for example)

Past $50m I would likely start some large community project, and find myself "working" to administer it. I'd still be doing something that resembles work

If I was completely disallowed to do anything that resembled work, then I'd do the following:

- learn Bach seriously and take twice-weekly lessons
- enroll in cooking school and learn to chef
- enroll in perfume school and learn to scent
- play bridge competitively and travel to compete

i really hope you get filthy rich so you can give peter strickland more money. or i guess i could get rich and do the same, yeah that'd be better

tbh, i would paint, do music stuff, read, and travel. i didn't really take this question to be about having the power of capital, just the freedom from having to work

Contemplating this question has made me realise just how deeply tied to the capitalist mindset my brain really is

...

Up to a personal net worth of, say, $50m, I still can't imagine myself "not working". Any serious amount of cash I would likely move into executive production on films, emerging filmmakers and established-filmmakers-who-would-benefit-from-larger-budgets (Peter Strickland, for example)

Past $50m I would likely start some large community project, and find myself "working" to administer it. I'd still be doing something that resembles work

This is kinda how I think, too. I don't have any family that needs help (my only brother's doing fine financially, and/but his kids are fuckups so there's no college expenses to consider), but if I ever won a massive lottery jackpot and had hundreds of millions of dollars to throw around, I'd turn Burning Ambulance into a much larger organization, hiring writers and editors and trying to become the world's biggest website devoted to out jazz, death metal and modern chamber music. And I'd buy a building and offer extremely low rent to artists and writers in an attempt to create more of a "scene" where I am. And probably do some other stuff to help people who are struggling here. But all that would involve a ton of "work," so I wouldn't even be able to just dump the money in a bank account and live off the interest.

go on the road with a metal band of my choosing for one year.

not as a roadie, because I am inept with electronics and not all that strong. just....a tagalong who tries not to get in the way

i like the variety of answers and angles itt

i mean the stuff id list, theres very little stopping me but i havent done it!

i. learn to sew enough to cover basic repairs and turn-ups
ii. download and organise a media collection
iii. go through twenty years of digital photos
iv. back up the above to the 1-2-3 method
v. buy a mic setup and learn basics of recording some basic tracks
vi. house finish stuff. shelves. coving. painting. picking up any standard tool without being terrified to use it.

hundreds of steps like the above covering a little more self-sufficiency and satisfaction of little neat useful tasks done well

I figure I would get bored of having fun and just start helping people and cleaning the planet. Secretly I hope AI entertainment completely fries our pleasure centers or whatever and everyone just gives on on pleasure and just becomes obsessed with cleaning and and helping

My answer to this question would have been a lot easier like 20+ years ago; today it requires a bit more thought

If backed by plenty of money, I would:

Give a bunch of it away. I would not establish my own foundation or something like that; too much $$$ wasted in new infrastructure/overhead, plus discomfort with the vanity project thing

Buy an awesome 3-horse living quarters trailer and a tow vehicle that can handle it. Probably also hire a friend to drive because even hauling my much smaller 2-horse trailer gives me the agita. Go horse camping all over the place

Clone my pony, make new pony

Get massages every week. Maybe hire a trainer

Without mad cash:

Be a docent somewhere, maybe a botanical garden or organic farm or something

Garden

Rent out house and spend time in different countries for a couple-three months at a time

Volunteer in hospice and/or my State Health Insurance Program or Medicare Patrol and/or be a long-term care ombudsperson

Get involved with my local field hunting (no foxes or killing any prey here) club

Knit chemo beanies or some shit

Host more dinner parties

I'd like to be the first one to say nothing. An ascetic remote-living monkish type of nothing, or the luxurious dandy version, in a good climate. Sounds like an underrated answer.

There are two lotteries advertizing in the street this season, one promising 5K a month for life, the other 22K a month for thirty years. Which got me into calculations and speculation, and I found that even 22K only amounts to about 7.5M with the disadvantage that you cannot buy a house and stop working the next day. I calculated that a gain of 10M is enough to be worry-free and have good pocket money. Anything more quickly creates more questions than answers, because of the responsibility to make something out of it (create a business, charity ?).

Gonna be a Baptist preacher

Quincie your list is excellent. I would also host more dinner parties. I LOVE entertaining. I love cooking for people and decorating and pulling a good party together. It's a lot of work though and I don't do it nearly as often as I'd like to. Not working would make this possible a lot more often.

Would also garden and I thought of another - I would try to go swimming every day.

Full time musician

I would probably be significantly depressed. So not much. I can't imagine I can find anything that will offer me the structure, familiarity, and accountability that I need to live day to day.

a boat load of money would be wasted on me tbh. I just would like not to work but anything more than 80% of my current minimum wage salary would be of no use as there's not really anything I would spend it on. no to travel (haven't been on holiday this century) no to restaurants ( ditto) no to socialising.

i think there's been a leaning into "didnt have to work" being characterised for the purposes of the question meaning "you now have a load of dollars to dispose of"

i think its a pity to reduce the question to that tbh?

Quincie your list is excellent. I would also host more dinner parties. I LOVE entertaining. I love cooking for people and decorating and pulling a good party together. It's a lot of work though and I don't do it nearly as often as I'd like to. Not working would make this possible a lot more often.

Would also garden and I thought of another - I would try to go swimming every day.

― Benson and the Jets (ENBB)

concur with every word of this

One of the reasons I work overnight shifts is so that i can swim at deserted beaches as many days as possible in the summer, of course it requires a 5 or 6 hour round trip on foot & public transit from Manhattan for 3 or 4 hours of swimming. If I didn't have to work I could get up earlier and stay out there later.

Tiny off-grid houses and cat+house plant sanctuary work would get going in earnest.

lots of all day cooking and rescue another four or five dogs sounds good yeah

loving all these wholesome responses

ive reached a phase of my life already where "every day is like a sunday" is, like, nice

I'd settle permanently in the canyons in L.A. and spend as much of every day outside as I could.

good way to get a sunburn

i would be gaming. thanks for asking

I would move my computer, which rarely gets used outside of work, and ser up an easel and canvases. also spend some time volunteering.

of course it would somewhat rankle that having kids would mean only six hours a day available, and no time at weekends. and zero chance of spending a season snowboarding.

never answering the phone again

*close family excepted

Right now? Studying more. Later in life, on a property with more land? Rescuing a stupid amount of cats and dogs

Volunteering and walking round Shotover Country Park, which were the two things I did spend a lot of time doing when I was last out of work.

I'd also be playing a silly amount of chess

Playing chess online (and in person as well I guess) really is one of the cheapest and most effective way to quickly experience a wide range of emotions: greed, fear, excitement, elation, despair, self-blame, self-praise etc. It's a kind of ersatz full-life.

that's true of most competitive online gaming, but chess's depth and cultural history offers a patina of significance to help ward off existential despair