Should you put off life for the future?
The evolution of an early retiree, with an OG of the FIRE movement: the Mad Fientist [The Other Side of Enough: Interview #9]
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The Way of Work explores stories of where we fit in the world of work. This is part of the series, The Other Side of Enough, exploring what life is like when you have enough to never work again. The last one was really popular: Just Enough to Walk Away (how to find freedom faster)
It’s the eternal debate: should you plan for tomorrow or live for today?
Saving and planning are often considered universal virtues, necessities for building a better life. It’s the delayed gratification framework: once we get there, we’ll finally be able to live in the present.
But what happens when “later” arrives?
Brandon, better known as the Mad Fientist, retired at the near-mythical age of 34. He’s one of the pioneers of the FIRE movement (Financial Independence Retire Early), up there with Vicki Robin and Mr. Money Mustache. He is the ultimate saver, reaching retirement the “old-fashioned way” – as a disciplined, frugal software developer who front loaded his career earnings, paired with tactics like travel hacking, advanced tax strategies, and meticulously tracked spreadsheets.
His strategy came with a clear underlying message: plan now so you can enjoy life later.
So what’s his life like now, eight years later, living inside the future he carefully planned for?
In our conversation, Brandon (a fan of this series, by the way) opens up about the challenges of breaking old habits. He reflects on how financial freedom unlocked opportunities, while also exposing deep insecurities about his identity and motivations.
This is a story about more than getting to the other side of enough – it’s about the tension between living in the moment versus preparing for what’s next. It’s about who we think we are, and who we will really become, when there’s nothing left holding us back.
Breaking free from the echo chamber
When we imagine retirement, it’s often a vision of endless vacation: travel, sleep, leisure, peace – a perpetual ‘ahhh’ of contentment. It’s a vision shaped by our brief escapes from work each year, assuming that life after work is just a prolonged version of that escape.
But for Brandon, it didn’t take long for that endless dream to, well, end:
“The 1st year [of retirement], we just traveled a lot, because that was what I thought I wanted my life to be. Just constant travel and exploring new places.
And then, we took a 3 month trip and I was like, ‘Okay, this is enough. I want to get back and just start working on some stuff and have some routine and normalcy.’
You see one temple, you’ve seen them all.”
So Brandon returned to what he’s good at: financial independence. He continued to build his Mad Fientist brand within the heyday of the FIRE movement – speaking opportunities, interviews, creating guides for others, and so on.
But at some point, he feels the need to move beyond money. He points out the circular nature of the FIRE movement, and how people who retire early spend all their time talking about retiring early:
“I think that's a trap that more and more people are falling into. They haven't really thought about what's after. And when they get there, they're like, ‘Oh, shit! Well, I'll just keep doing the same thing I'm doing.’”
For many, the pursuit of “enough” leads to an endless preoccupation with the things that got us there. We stay within our familiar grooves, where we feel comfortable, skilled and valued. But ultimately, we’re unable to escape the echo chamber of our old lives. The FIRE world is just one example.
“They just immerse themselves in the FIRE community. And it just doesn't make sense to me.
FIRE is a hammer. If you want to build model airplanes, fly them, hang out with other people that build model airplanes or whatever… then you’ll buy the best hammer that you can. But you're not going to go to hammer conventions for the rest of your life!
And yet, that's what I see a lot of people do. It's easy because you're good at it. But it's more about, what's next? And why are you doing it?”
What’s the point of independence if you just repeat what you’ve always done? True freedom lies not in doing more of the same, but in daring to imagine a different life altogether.
Motivations melt away
Without his focus on financial independence or the pressure of financial goals, how does Brandon decide what to do with his time?
“It's something I struggle with. I'm not sitting on the couch for 8 hours playing video games lazy, but I do find it really hard to get started sometimes.”
Many of us resent the hold money has on our lives. How much better it would be without that burden holding us back! But the motivation to make money serves a hidden purpose, one we may not realize until the need is gone:
“It's weird when money doesn't really matter. It used to govern all of my decisions.”
But there was something Brandon always wanted to do once he was free: make and play music. It had always been a “childhood dream,” and financial freedom, he believed, would unlock that door.
And yet, years into retirement, he’d barely touched it.
"I'd made no progress on the music thing, which I thought was the whole point."
What’s holding him back, when there’s nothing seemingly there to stop him?
Dreams are safer as dreams
When we’re working, our minds often wander to the future – a world where we can finally embrace the life we want. We’ll author elaborate fantasies in our heads about life after independence:
What we’ll do.
How we’ll live.
Who we’ll become.
In that imagined future, we can finally embrace the present. Or so we think.
For Brandon, when he finally had a chance to realize his dreams, he struggled to act on them. He realized something else was holding him back:
“[When I was working,] I blamed my job for not making progress on that long term dream. Which is such bullshit. I had plenty of time.
But it wasn't until 2 years of [retirement] when I had made zero progress on the music stuff, that I realized it was never my job that was holding me back. It was self-doubt.”
Our dreams stay safest when they remain in our heads. In the real world, they risk collapse. So we leave them unspoiled, secure in our imagination.
“I have this hope in my brain that future-me is gonna write an album one day. It's gonna be amazing. And it's gonna be super fun. And I'll get to play it live and all that sort of stuff.”
It's so comforting to sit in that fantasy. Why put it at risk?
“I don't wanna try and fail, because then my dream is dead. So instead, I just won't do anything.”
No more excuses
“If I had any other thing to do, I would have put it off.”
For years, Brandon avoided his dream of making music, buried under layers of excuses. But then, the COVID pandemic happened—a cosmic shove that forced him to confront what he’d been running from. Stuck at home with nothing else to do, the existential fear of facing his dreams became less terrifying than the thought of doing nothing at all.
“It was so hard. And I had to face all these personal demons of, ‘I can't do it.’ And [musicians] have a gift that I don't.”
What if this dream was just a silly fantasy after all? What would it say about him if he tried and failed? But after years of planning to make music, waiting for the perfect conditions, he finally forced himself to act.
“It was only the fact that I made myself sit in that chair for 5 hours a day and just tried things that I eventually did it.”
And after all the avoidance, the procrastination, the excuses… Brandon finally released his album. It wasn’t a mega-hit, but it did make it to the Billboard charts.
But more than the album, what also mattered was the chance to play music live. This, it seems, is where he truly lives in the moment.
“It's all just about having songs to play live. It's not really whether anybody buys or likes it.”
He’s been able to achieve his ultimate goal of playing shows with his brother, a professional drummer, who he’d played with in his garage growing up as a kid. Music had always been the bond they shared, and now, after all those years of dreaming, it was real.
So what’s his conclusion after facing his fears? That when the external excuses are removed, the internal struggle becomes unavoidable.
“Why are you not pursuing your hard goals or living the life you think you want to live?
You realize, you're the problem, not the job.
And sometimes you long for having that easy scapegoat to blame rather than trying to figure out: why aren't you doing what you say you want to do?”
The Return of Old Habits
At this point, you might think that Brandon now plays music every day, living out his days happily ever after. But this is real life, not the movies – there’s no clean resolution. Brandon still wrestles with the question: is he truly living in the moment or simply planning for another future?
“I'm always a long term thinker. I'm always planning for the future. My issue is trying to figure out more present and less future. But it's tough because a lot of the future fun needs to be worked on now.”
Here we go again, back to the eternal tug-of-war, the conflicting desires.
“How much of my life should be lived for now, which seems limitless and really exciting? But it's also trying to figure out those long-term things that are maybe shitty in the current, but they're gonna make the future a lot more fun and exciting.”
Pay attention here to his internal struggle, the battle royale between present-Brandon versus future-Brandon. How he wonders whether his dreams are genuine or simply carried forward by inertia.
“I'm in the midst of trying to write a 2nd album. The 1st album scratched all the itches. That was my childhood dream. I did it, and I'm really still proud of it.
And still, it would be good to have another album's worth of material for playing live. But [writing music is] such a soul destroying process for me. It sucks. And it's really making my current days not fun. But I know, if I do it I'll feel proud that I've conquered all these demons yet again, and then I'll have more material to play live, which is ultimately what it's all about.
So I'm struggling with that balance because it's easy for me just to fall back into future mode, and just keep doing these things for my future self.
But again… what for? Am I just on autopilot? Is it just what 15-year old Brandon wants?
Because I don't want to do the hard work and try to figure something else out? Or is this what I really do want?”
Despite living with total freedom, he’s still challenged with how to best spend his time.
“It's that balance that's tough. Because, yeah, I sort of feel weird living for today. Although I'm trying. I've been trying to allow myself that…”
Lessons from the other side
Planning for a better future has certainly benefited Brandon.
“I have never been more thankful for my past decisions.
I still frequently catch myself thinking about how incredibly lucky I am to have this amount of freedom. And even though this new lifestyle isn't without challenges, they're challenges I feel grateful to be able to confront now (rather than at 80, or potentially never).”
But what can we learn from Brandon? Why do we procrastinate on our dreams? Why is it so hard to live in the moment, even when we’re free?
It’s clear that it’s not as simple as “always plan for tomorrow.” Because what if there is no tomorrow? What if we’re supposed to be living for today, right now?
Brandon’s story also shows us that transitioning from being future-oriented to now-oriented, isn’t just a flip of the switch.
“It's totally worth saving so that you can have freedom. But yeah, it's not worth it to sacrifice your current life.
I put everything off until retirement, which was stupid. I think I would have done it a lot differently.”
Perhaps while planning for the future, we also need to train ourselves to enjoy the now.1
“It was eye opening. Looking back like all the things that I blamed on my job, none of them were because of my job.
I could have easily been living my ideal lifestyle, and could have been pursuing all my big goals even with the job.”
His final advice to his former self:
“Figure out what you think your perfect life is like.
But live that dream life as much as you can in the present. Don't delay it.”
So which is it: live for today or plan for tomorrow? Is it possible to strike a balance between the two? Or are we locked into an eternal struggle?
Where we draw that line – through the countless choices we make every single day – will ultimately shape the course of our lives. And someday, we may look back and wonder: what did we get right?
Special thank you to Brandon for sharing his story. To learn more about his work, go to MadFientist.com, or check out his music: Spotify | Apple Music.
This interview was transcribed, then summarized and edited for clarity; any emphasis is mine.
Bonus Questions
What are resources that have helped you in your transition?
Die With Zero, by Bill Perkins
Mindset, by Carol Dweck
Atomic Habits, by James Clear
What has been your best purchase, since hitting enough?
A nice house, and fancier car/AirBnB rentals for vacations
Before & After - on a scale of 1-10 (10 being best), how would you rate the following before and after enough:
Health: 5 → 8 (+30%)
Stress (10 is low stress): 7 → 9 (+20%)
Creativity: 6 → 9 (+30%)
Relationships: 7 → 8 (+10%)
Impact: 5 → 7 (+20%)
Meaning: 5 → 9 (+40%)
Work Hours/Week: 40 → 2 (-95%)
This is part of the series, The Other Side of Enough, exploring what life is like when you have enough to never work again. Our last interview, with a surprise guest, is next week. Some other articles from the series you might like:
Everywhere But Home: The search for belonging after reaching financial freedom at 32
“If happiness always depends on something expected in the future, we are chasing a will-o’-the-wisp that ever eludes our grasp, until the future, and ourselves, vanish into the abyss of death.”
- Alan Watts, from The Wisdom of Insecurity
This is so good! A great reminder that maybe the day job isn't the problem.
I fell for FIRE back when I was unsettled in my career. Funnily, when I found more enjoyment in my work, FIRE faded from view.