During a discussion with my wife, we veered into the ideology of the FIRE community. From the surface, it’s a very laudable goal: save 50% or more of your income, living as minimally as possible, invest the rest and retire early.

My wife relayed the story of a family member of her coworker who did this very thing. Their kids are off to school now and they are retired early with no debts, however, all their opportunities to travel or be part of community activities as a family are gone. Since they never did any of it (focusing purely on the goal of retiring early), they missed out on something they can never get back.

I get the appeal and the arguments for pursuing this route as you wind up with no debt, no mortgage and no fear of being locked down to any particular line of work just to pay the bills. The common phrases thrown around within the community include, “getting out of the rat race” and “not waiting until a time when you can’t enjoy life anymore.”

This also stretches across the divide from the ultra-frugal community to the “make mad bank” entrepreneurs looking to build a multi-million dollar business to sell. Same type of sacrifice, but with a heavier dose of luck required for this to work out. Actually, luck is required for both these camps, but that’s beyond what I want to get at here.

There’s good lessons to take from what they’re doing (mainly a rampant stampede upon mindless consumerism and learned helplessness) and everyone should have a strong foundation of financial literacy. However, I find their arguments beyond the numbers a lot less convincing.

People today are living longer, aging better and have a much better understanding of health than at any point in history. Yes, the vitality of a twenty year old will always be superior to that of someone older, but to say you’re wasting your “best” years needs another follow-up question:

Wasting them how?

I assure you the way a young person treats swaths of free time will seem incredibly more wasteful than an older version of themselves. Also, preferences, tastes, hobbies and even goals change over the course of time and as a young person, you just don’t know what you want. Rather, you think you know until you get there and then have to contend with the disappointment that it’s nothing to celebrate (I’ve heard it referred to as the arrival fallacy).

I think beneath the surface is an underlying issue that says we don’t know how to enjoy ourselves until we’re free from having to do anything. That the allure of never having to work again is a retaliation against this North American value that your meaning in life is tied to what you do. That putting your faith in a market that must grow is the only solution.

When we focus on the numbers, we miss the moments we could’ve had with our family, friends and community.

There definitely comes a point when, as my mother-in-law so wonderfully put it, you hit your “best before” date. But there are many ways to enjoy your life along the way before you get there.