Ok so I'm a little worried about the hate i'll get here for this, since antiwork seems to be somewhat more about hating rich people and hating corporate management than hating work, but here goes:
I (39M, if it matters) was a lawyer for about 10 years before getting laid off in the pandemic near the end of 2020. Almost instantly all the anxiety and low-level mental health issues i've been having for years disappeared. LIke within 10 days. It was amazing.
I started going to school full time this year, in 2022, to train for a new career after a year-plus of travel and sitting around at home and enjoying the wonderful pandemic unemployment benefits. And i'm really realizing that OMG I LOVE NOT WORKING SO MUCH. Like, I basically there's nothing in any given day that I don't want to do. LIke sometimes I have to clean the bathroom & stuff, but whatever. I don't get bored, even when I'm not in school. My biggest annoyance in my whole life is the fucked up NYC subway system, which on the whole is a very small annoyance. Like other than waiting for the random A train, I feel like I do almost nothing that I don't want to do.
SO I'm starting to think, what if after I finish school I just didn't get another job?
If I took all my assets and rearranged them, I could probably create a pretty safe, inflation-protected stream of income worth about $20-25K a year in 2022 dollars. Which is about what I'm living on now as a student out of savings.
I'm gay, single, i don't want kids or a marriage, my parents are fairly well off and won't need me to take care of them, so I don't need to really save a whole lot. But i would also need to buy health insurance so my actual spending cash may be more like 15-20K, but I'm healthy with no chronic conditions so maybe I could get by on very basic health insurance.
But I would probably have to leave NYC, which is sad but living here on $20K would be a fight. (But in NYC i would get free health insurance.) ANd I'm not really sure where I would go, I've been here for almost 15 years, almost my whole adult life. I also would largely have to give up travel, and my social life would need to be revised downward since most of my friends don't have the same financial constraints I would have.
BUT i love not working so much. I'm just not sure I can live on that little, it might be too limiting. IF it were $50K instead of $25K it would be a no brainer I just wouldn't work anymore.
What say you internet? Would you live simply in order to avoid work? Am i being shortsighted about this?