Work serves as a default purpose for lots of people. Family and children are a pretty good built-in biological one.
Learning things, building a company, making things can all serve that need. Working on big unsolved problems can too.
I think most people feel uneasy and unhappy if they're not part of a community doing something they think is valuable. A lot of religion serves this purpose for people (though I personally find religion to be a net negative).
Finding different things that motivate you and are worth dedicating your life (or some subset of your life) to work on is hard, but I think knowing that it's worth trying to find something is the first step.
True financial independence is a way to make the search more possible without anxiety of financial ruin, but it doesn't remove the non-money related anxieties and it doesn't fix all the other sexual selection incentives that remain.
Work serves as a default purpose for lots of people. Family and children are a pretty good built-in biological one.
Learning things, building a company, making things can all serve that need. Working on big unsolved problems can too.
I think most people feel uneasy and unhappy if they're not part of a community doing something they think is valuable. A lot of religion serves this purpose for people (though I personally find religion to be a net negative).
Finding different things that motivate you and are worth dedicating your life (or some subset of your life) to work on is hard, but I think knowing that it's worth trying to find something is the first step.
True financial independence is a way to make the search more possible without anxiety of financial ruin, but it doesn't remove the non-money related anxieties and it doesn't fix all the other sexual selection incentives that remain.