You would be a bad millionaire
svedic.org
svedic.org
- become VCs/angels
- build bigger, self-funded businesses
- donate big money to charities, or start our own
- do direct giving to those need (my preference to charity)
- donate to institutions doing basic science, medical research, life extension, youth preservation research
- pay to attend a prestigious university beyond our financial means and time budget
- spend more time producing free software, music, art
- go work somewhere just to work on interesting things / fun without fear of making the best choice earnings or reputation-wise, or just beyond one's current abilities due to lack of the proper background. Example: someone is very interested in working on robotics. They work "survival tech" jobs that they can't just quit to magically attend the MIT robotics program, which would lead to to work in the field. Their potential is wasted at present; if they had the money, they could contribute a whole lot more.
Some of us would make fantastic millionaires.
It's not about having enough money to do 'nothing' (although hey, if that's what you want).
It's about having enough money to have FREEDOM OF CHOICE.
To do whatever you choose, when you choose to (within legal/ethical reason, unless you're really wealthy).
I also find it interesting that so many people know what would make me happy - if you're that sure, give me the money (1 million would do, but I'd accept more) and I promise I'll give it back in 6 months if I'm no happier then than I am now.
* Improve my culinary skills. Some recipes require all day to do "right", and I need to take short-cuts in order to use the 30 minutes - 1 hour I have per day.
* Recreational programming. Few people who are good at numeric programming also have the free time to just "play". Procedural generation, using the latest/greatest visual processing algorithms, automatically integrating real-time data feeds into a "game" of sorts. I hate that I'm using my creativity to generate excel reports that mostly get consumed by programs.
* Music theory. I'd love to know more here.
* Home improvement / homesteading. It would be great to have to time to make my living space better fit for my preferences.
* Volunteering and advocacy. There are a lot of low paying problems in the world that need good motivated minds working on them.
* Art projects. I loved art in college, but never had the time to pursue it in my professional life.
* Personal Health. I love to run and open water swim. Both of these require me to have good weather and be in the right physical state to make use of that weather. Having more free time maximizes my chance to exercise under optimal conditions.
I think it helps that most of these things are things I can do alone and do not necessarily require coordination with other people. The author seems to stress how lonely it is to not have enforced scheduled social time.