I think you can only be truly free if you don't have to work. If I work I am automatically wasting part of my life. If 100% of life could be spare time then I would be content. I would have no regrets afterwards when looking back as an old man.
This is achievable in society by being rich. However that might take a lot of work and/or maybe luck too.
It is too scary to try, so like most people I settled to study something and get a job. The deal now is that I work only 32 hours, never more. I can't be truly free, but it will be more eye for an eye I think.
Technically, I could turn a profit on life with 32 hours. However it turns out even that is exhausting. It still feels unbalanced and this is really upsetting. On my spare day I am tired and also often in weekend. Maybe moving closer to work and giving it time will settle this (I am only just starting the job).
Whenever I have days off I am just incredibly frustrated. I am often too tired to do what I want to do, it still isn't enough time and then I think: maybe I should have risked it all by trying to become rich.
I also feel like I have lost so much life due to school, because school vs spare time ratio wasn't equal and it was exhausting due to commute and autism.
I have thought about working 32 hours in 3 days after I move closer to work (my company allows us to work whenever we want if we just make the hours) . Maybe that will be better. Then I have 4 days of life every week and I will feel like work doesn't dominate my life. I have to be able to do that though. Maybe something like working 8 hours, going home, having dinner, and then working some more hours on monday, tuesday and wednesday.
I wish work or school just wasn't the central part of most lifes. I wish that we instead of asking “what do you do in your spare time?”, would ask “what do you do in your work time?” and then another question, the main question, would be: “what do you do in life?”.