Nah, I want "fuck you money" so that work becomes optional. I want to work on what I want, not what someone else wants. I want to work because I want to, not because I have to.
Retirement isn't good enough. By the time you retire you are in your 60s, which is too late for me.
You can reach financial independence in your 30s if you work for a big tech company for 10 years and watch your spending. I think that's what your parent comment was referring to.
I have a failed startup in my past too and when it failed some people tried to tell me I deserved the extra debt I now carried because I decided to take on so much risk. I never saw it that way - for me, I was trying to escape prison. Escaping the rat race while young enough to enjoy it is not some luxury like a Tesla or a second home I want to posses, its my life! It's like being in jail, every day I feel like I'm being enslaved - after all if I stop doing what other people tell me (my job), eventually burly men with guns (cops) will come round and just take it anyway. From this point of view there isn't much difference between being well off & employed and being poor & employed.
If you try to break out and get thrown in solitary then sure, I guess you're worse off, but either way you're still trapped. What's really funny is that when your attempt fails it's the other prisoners who want to cut you down for trying & want to see you punished the most.
I would like to spend all day doing fun, personal projects. But I've tried having all day to spend on fun personal projects, and it turns out spend the time "goofing off". (Not "enjoying life" goofing off, but "dopamine cycle on Facebook" goofing off.)
I like work because it has me doing stuff that's similar to what I want to do in my free time, but provides the necessary incentives to actually do it each day.
My job isn't perfect, but it has me doing productive, rewarding, mostly-interesting stuff with a bunch of smart people whom I like and can learn from.
It's worse than my dream life for my dream self, but it's better than my dream life for my actual self. I may not be behind, but I still like to feel like I'm moving forward, and work does that for me.
On the other hand, I did quite enjoy my ~1 month of working four-hour days a few years back, so there's probably a better balance than I have right now.
I think everyone's incentive is to work as little as possible (work is straining). But a culture of shame has everyone instead claiming that's not true (and lost for what is)
Exercising is straining, but I'm planning on doing a 60 mile bike ride tomorrow, purely for the enjoyment of it.
Meaningful work and a sense of accomplishment doesn't seem like it's caused by a culture of shame. I can get that from a hobby (painting, writing, programming, carpentry), or I can get it from a job (painting, writing, programming, carpentry). In either case, it seems normal beyond the boundaries of culture to derive satisfaction from this.
It might be a lot harder to derive satisfaction from hobbies with no "productive" output (my long bike ride, hiking in the woods) due to a culture insisting on productivity, but I don't think it's true that the productive ones would be valued less than non-productive ones if not for enculturation.
Retirement isn't good enough. By the time you retire you are in your 60s, which is too late for me.