30-year-old says they're 'ready to retire'—their reasons are striking a chord with fellow millennials

Many people on the internet felt they just couldn't catch a proper break even after working for many years.

PUBLISHED MAR 27, 2025

A man lying on his desk and looking at his laptop with a tired expression on his face. (Representative Cover Image Source: Pexels | Nataliya Vaitkevich; (Inset) Reddit | u/carbonsav)

People often think about the purpose of their work and life every once in a while. While pondering over their existence, they sometimes find out that they do not really want to do what they have been doing. Similarly, a 30-year-old millennial, u/carbonsav, expressed that they were mentally ready to retire from work. They took to Reddit to share their reasoning behind the thought and many people agreed with their feelings about work and life and how exhausting it could get.

A woman holding onto her head due to exhaustion as she works on her laptop. Representative Image Source: Pexels | Marcus Aurelius

"I just turned 30 last year. These are supposed to be the prime working years of my life. But I don't care," they pointed out. "This whole work maketh man crap is just societal programming for us to give our lives to the system in return for green ink on some paper." The person has worked multiple jobs throughout their life and was deployed in the US military three times in the past few years and has also seen people die. "I'm ready to do nothing. I don't want kids. I don't want marriage. I want peace." They believed that the "you must produce for society" rhetoric is just a way to control a person's "entire reality."

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"Are birds not productive enough? No, because they are f***ing birds. They fly and they make tweet tweet noises for f*** sake," they expressed. "My brother in Christ, we are so asleep. So deeply trapped in the programming of the people who control and print the money." They even went on to warn people against "joining the US military." People in the comment section could resonate with how the person was feeling.

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u/Zerthax wrote, "I have a job that I consider meaningful and beneficial to society. The problem is how f***ing relentless it is. I'm 20 years into my career and the longest period of time I've had off work since has been 3 weeks. And I moved long-distance during those 3 weeks to start a new job. I'm burned the f*** out and need some serious time off to recharge. Not something a few weeks will fix either. Probably on the order of 3 months. I'm actually taking a serious look at what I can do to scale back my career, something that is more sustainable for me. It's getting more and more difficult to hang on and the light at the end of the tunnel is too far away." u/MegabitMegs commented, "As an American, especially now, I want to weep whenever I read things like this. I feel so desperate for something better and I know I’m by far not alone. We are not well."

Image Source: Reddit | u/forgottenastronauts

Another user suggested, "Do a work exchange on a hobby farm in a foreign country (Workaway or Wwoof website). Depending on who you get, sometimes you barely work a few hours a day. Enjoy all the local attractions and learn about the country from the inside rather than as a tourist. One of the best years of my life." u/gabotuit remarked, "Not to mention the toxic unnatural conditions over corporate environments… you’re supposed to pretend you don’t have a life outside work, even your personality is neutered."