The title was not meant to be a click bait. I did not want the title to be too long, so had to truncate there. Aristotle supposedly said that the most important thing in life is figuring out how you spend your leisure time. I am not sure if those were the exact words, but he does write about difference between work and leisure. In today’s world, we spend too much time on work and have very little time in leisure. And any free time we have, we spend on entertainment. Leisure, unlike mere amusement, involves pleasure, happiness and living blessedly – Aristotle.


Many people consider leisure to be bad. But according to Aristotle, work and leisure are both good in their own way. Whether one wants to agree, is up to them. I know some people who consider leisure to be a rotten way of spending time. I am with Aristotle though. We are all busy with work and building wealth. That is perfectly fine. But one should also make time to be leisure too. Of course not everyone can have leisure, but those who can, should go for it.


I am now going to write down some of my views, so feel free to skip reading. As I write this post, I am reminded that it has been exactly 5 years since I officially retired from work on my own terms. Note that I was already financially independent for about 6 months before I put in my papers. I still remember the feeling of being liberated. I am not a slave to someone or money. I can start making my own rules, work on things I love and ignore all things I don’t like – politics, small talk, boring meetings, artificial deadlines, long nights and so on.


But way before I quit, I already thought about how I want to spend my leisure time. I already had plans and just thinking about them would give me the high even as I was working. I am very fortunate and humbled that I went down a path that gives me all the time to do only the things that I really want to do. I work on personal projects that make me happy, I help out friends, I spend a lot of time with family. Doing all the things that gives me joy.


I gave up a ridiculously well paying, comfortable job, just to do what I love to do. I made the decision to leave the job even as the stock market was falling. And now after 5 years, I am still working on my personal projects that I love and I am happily spending time with my friends and family. Financially, while my portfolio is still below my expectations even after 5 years, I am doing perfectly fine. Quitting work was absolutely the right decision.


My corpus (blue line) is still below my projection (red line)


Looking forward to another 5 years of leisure time! That was a short post and I don’t deliberately make posts short or long or a certain size or number of words. It is what it is, as it comes in my mind. Cheers!