If you have a 9 to 5 then you're waking up at sunrise and going to bed some time after sunset. You're probably commuting, getting out in the world, chatting to people even if it's just the colleagues, Starbucks drive through, supermarket checkout clerk, that sort of thing.

If you have retirement level money and you're alone there is absolutely nothing stopping you from waking up at 2pm, sitting on your computer playing World of Warcraft ordering takeaways, not going out for a walk or seeing the sunlight, getting slightly more depressed each day in a spiral.

There's also nothing stopping you from going out drinking every day or every other of the week, shrugging off the hangover then hitting the next one. And so on and so forth.

People easily underestimate how much their sense of well-being is related to simple things like just going for a walk in the sunshine every now and then or eating properly.

The irony of the situation is that by the time I earn the money my kids will grow up, leaving me a sad lonely man.

It may be the case that once I reach complete and comfortable financial independence it will not be all I expected it to be, but right now I don't see myself not appreciating the hell out of it, however I am sure plenty of people have thought they would be happy when reaching X goal and they either weren't or it was fleeting. I do have to say that so far I have come a long way from where I used to be from what I consider a hopeless position.

But there is a difference in my view whether you can walk in the park knowing that you don't have any potentially stressful responsibilities and problems coming up or you are walking in the park and excited about working on a hobby project of yours since you can 100 percent focus on that.