This answer might be somewhat unusual, but honestly? I would continue working. I like to keep busy, and I feel like I would get bored quickly. Sure, a break might be nice for me to catch up with personal projects, but in the long term, I would like to work.

I suppose it also helps that I'm a rare case where I enjoy the work that I do

I don't work I quit work at 35 and am now 58. It takes time Toni shacke from the societal indoctrination Misha bleeding work as worthy. I live off a small investment income from investments made decades past (I was buying shares from age 19 and have always been frugal growing up poor, I also own my own modest cottage in a small rural village) Those investments have only grown through no particular perspicacity of mine.

Eventually you can come to understand that freedom is and do what you want. My only regret ? Not quitting earlier, those years were wasted and I can't get them back.

If I didn't get go work I would be bored for a while until I get used to it. I don't have much content in my life and work is a key aspect in keeping routines and all that jazz.

I would stay in my room. That's why I do anyways after work (when I had a job).

Probably just developing free & open source software. Doing other things that I enjoy: music production, traveling, idk. I'd definitely make sure to have some goal, something that I can learn or work on. Something that I can achieve, and look back at.

I’d keep working for a few years and use every single penny to generate additional passive income. Once I was not just comfortable, but nicely appointed, I’d split my time between working part time, doing stuff to help other people, and being a gigantic slut.

I would work full time on contributing code and development efforts to !boinc@sopuli.xyz , which is a software used by scientists to distribute massive computational workloads to the computers of volunteers for processing. All sorts of medical, physics, and math research gets done through it.

Hmmm I am kinda in this situation now and I have to say I still want to work just not for other people (unless I know them well). I actually am trying to be more active and working on my own stuff makes me feel good and gets me off my ass.

Read, write, gym, combat sports, paint, study, research, try to contribute to science, astronomy, camping, gardening, fishing, and a lot more.

Having your basic needs covered is cool, but I'd like some money on top of that, too. So work it is.

I would spend more time doing charity work and contributing to open source.

I already volunteer for a reproductive justice charity, and I would LOVE to devote more time to making the Linux desktop more accessible for visually impaired folks like me.

I'd probably spend my time learning IT, computer hardware specs and maybe networking.

Maybe build a private file sharing | streaming service for my apartment, and start a website blog.

Perhaps also persue digital art and finally learn how to use vectors.

Maybe also make a YouTube channel and spend my time educating others.

But alas, im bound by my need for an income and will spend the next few years trying to persists as a (almost) new mechanical engineer bachelor.

Probably other kinds of work.

Like I would love to staff a local convenience store. Maybe some farming for part of the year. Oh and fixing people's appliances would be so cool

Like almost everyone else on this thread has said, I would still work; just for fulfilment rather than to survive.

Fishing and sailing.

I like to think I'd tend to my garden, fix bicycles for the neighborhood, volunteer at a youth center and become politically active. But there were times when I had no job and no lack of money, and I just doomscrolled 16 hours a day.
Now I have a job that doesn't stress me out, has purpose, pays the bills and then some, and is done at 3pm. And I actually do all these other things in my free time.
But I do need strong external motivation to start the day and get outside.

What I do when I have spare time: write. I just don't seem to have had any spare time recently.

under capitalism or an alternative?

Reading, crafting, learning a language.

Aside from being lazy and playing video games all day, I would like to learn new skills. I always said I wanted to try woodworking. A lot of my current skills involve being on a computer so I would like at least one that involves tools and using my hands.

Mostly more of what I do in my free time now. Mess around trying to make music, watch TV and movies, play video games, read, watch live music, go on hikes and spend time with my family.

I don't understand the people who say they'd be bored if they didn't work. I have more than enough media alone to keep me busy, never mind the amount of things I could pick up or at least try in the extra time. Maybe I'd learn to code and contribute to some open source projects.

The difference would be it would all be on my own terms and truly at my own leisure.

In no particular order:

• Finally do those after-class reading + tutoring sessions for kids in my daughter's school.
• Sign up for shifts on the "Good-Night-Bus" in my local town that looks after homeless people during night-time.
• Play hand-pan, guitar & other random instruments at local relaxation spots to add to the overall atmosphere of "the good life"
• regularly offer my handymen skills to my neighborhood via local web-platform and also contribute to "Repair-Cafés" as a helping hand
• Find a local community-garden project to help out at so that the city stays 0.1% greener than without me
• Offer my yet-currently-relevant professional skills (Frontend / WebPerf / CDNs / DevOps) to a NGO that couldn't usually afford my wages (again: preferably something relevant to my region to feel a sense of impact)
• Keep maintaining my OpenSource repositories and publish new ideas ASAP to prevent Software Patents

Garden, fuck, go to the beach, read, dance, cook and ferment, hang out with people. Probably still work some for money if I needed it to buy stuff like drinks or an e-bike, or to travel, I'm sure we'd still have a money economy of some sort. Same stuff I'd do if I could afford to retire. If I was a few years younger, would foster a kid or two.

Oh, and I'm sure I could live a full and healthy life without paid employment, myself.

Read. Study topics I don’t know about. Learn new skills and try out new experiences. Travel to different places I haven't visited before.

Gardening and pickling/preserving foods to start. Writing a novel.

A lot of birdwatching, maybe some music-making, and learning to cook very well.

I haven’t worked for almost a year. Mostly, I wake up, play video games, eat, and do some work around the house. There are pretty bad days where I feel worthless and tell myself pretty negative stories, but I’ve gotten much better at ignoring them. Now, I’ll be going back to work soon, and I’m terrified of losing my total free time.

I'd go to school and take every course I possibly could for the rest of my life or until I couldn't.

Probably take a break for a month or two then look for some oss project or activism to participate in, play more music and video games, etc.

If this is a transition from how I live now to never needing to work again, I'm guessing the first 6 months to a year would just be disbelief and slacking. Video games, TV/YouTube, etc.

I'd probably do more of the things I do with my limited off time: gardening, taking care of family & pets, taekwondo.

Honestly have no idea what I'd do once I became accustomed to it. Maybe travel? Participate in local politics more? Volunteer? I would definitely have a sense that I needed to do something to make my life "worth it" that I currently get from working to provide for my family.

It's definitely a result of conditioning, not some fundamental truth of the universe. But nearly 50 years of that conditioning is hard to break overnight.

Hike the entirety of the AT and the PCT.

Go bikepacking more frequently. Or go on a months long trip.

Make art - photography, digital art, linocut.

Help friends and family with projects.

That's the short version. There are so many possibilities once you remove the need to be tied to a job/computer for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. I would love to have the freedom to simply not work. I don't want to be rich, I just want to be able to exist without having to work.

Working on something I want.

Ive always wanted to study microbiology and try to use it to cure viruses. Dont know why, it just seems so interesting how weird things like cells are and how viruses go through their cycle and how it affects living things. Who knows, maybe in abother life.