You're free to, yes. That doesn't mean you automatically know what that looks like or how to build your life around it.

“Do what you love” assumes someone already knows what gives them fulfilment. Plenty of people spend so long getting by that they've barely had the chance to figure that out. Give them financial security and you've removed a huge burden, but you haven't automatically supplied direction.

That's why I said employment isn't the sole source of purpose. Having the freedom to find another one and actually finding it are two very separate things.

I'm semi-retired in my 30s, and I agree with you 100%

I currently have a half dozen or so hobbies I rotate through to fill my time (1 is a passion business that generates a small amount of money)

Sometimes I'll spend a few months just focusing on scuba diving, or I'll be flying all the time. Or I get really into a game and play it for a week straight

I worked in tech, so I still do tech as a hobby, but it's nice to be able to do it for months at a time

Nurture your hobbies. You should at least have something to look forward to other than work

PS: Also do hobbies with friends. I'm almost never doing anything alone, because it's more fun with others

Absolutely, but when its hard to find that thing in the first place, the relationships being brief provides more points of possible failure.

The grass is ALWAYS greener, that saying feels trite but it proves itself over and over.

Hope you find a job you like a bit more bud, I wish you all the luck in the world 🙏

And those people tend to die fairly quickly after retirement. I work with a guy that holds this belief, so he swears he'll work until he dies. He's already 75 and working in a foundry doing work that's harder than a 75 year old should realistically be doing. I mean, props to him that he physically still can. But he's at the point where he can't remember names and faces, and it's like dude... At this point you may be putting other people's lives in danger. Time to get a safer job if you want to keep working.

A hobby is still short of a purpose, most of the time.