From this piece:
For most people, retirement means they are finally free to do whatever they want without worrying about money. They could finally leave their jobs, travel around the world, and set their schedules so it fits their rhythm of life.
However, this is a low bar for freedom. Giving away thirty-plus years of your life to an indifferent career is like spending all your youth with a partner that you’d rather not be around. When you finally break free of that job or relationship, you’ll be left wondering what else you could have done with all that misspent energy.
And
The problem with freedom-as-leisure is that it is fundamentally asymmetrical. You have to work significantly more hours for each hour of leisure you may gain, which means that if you hate your job, you have to accumulate a lot of misery before you can cash it in for freedom.
As long as you aren’t working to payoff immediate debt, according to the article you can reframe the way you think about work
This is where you realize that work isn’t about retirement; it’s about working on the things you’d do if money wasn’t even a factor… not because they’re profitable, but because you enjoy the hard work it takes in building them.
The first thing that the freedom-in-work model does is that it lowers the threshold of money you need to continue your work. When work in itself is fulfilling and worthwhile, you become more content with a minimal lifestyle.
This is because money no longer serves as a reliable signal of your worth and priorities. In the freedom-as-leisure model, the amount of money you made from your job was of utmost importance. If money was the only justification for your continued employment, that salary better be high enough to make your time worth it.