Nobody optimizes happiness
I think it’s even a bit simpler than that.<p>The, admittedly reductive, viewpoint I take: people who presumably “have it all” because they gained financial freedom are often depressed because they’ve earned a freedom that <i>others</i> told them they wanted.<p>Many of us are “pipelined”. The course of our lives is not determined by some conscious self-realization, but rather follows a prescribed track. I think (at least American) schooling is largely a failure because it does not teach <i>self reflection</i>. We fail students by failing to even introduce most of them to philosophical thinking. Instead, our schools are focused on teaching the skills required to produce laborers that will ultimately buoy up the economic system.<p>But the reality is, most people don’t want to be laborers, so when everything is framed like this we equate freedom with freedom from labor. But that isn’t the form of freedom most people really want. People want a more radical freedom grounded in self-fulfillment. All the FIRE folks chase freedom from labor but never spend any time doing philosophical reflection, thus they never realize how they actually want to self-define and shape their lives, thus they face ennui and depression once their grand battle for freedom from labor ends.<p>In other words, Sartre and De Beauvoir had much to teach us.