retirement should not be thought of as the traditional retirement of sitting at home watching tv all day due to reaching old age of not being able to functionally work anymore..
FIRE is not about declining health and need to stop operating in work(traditional retirement)
FIRE is about being financially independent to not need to work yourself to death, but instead giving you more freedom and time to enjoy life and explore and experience new things
dont waste opportunity to retire early just to become a sofa cushion.. enjoy the freedom of time and income independence BEFORE you reach the health decline stage that stops you from enjoying the time off
you have a good sentence here, many people misunderstand that early retirement is those who relax at home and burden their lives by sitting on the couch all day eating unhealthy food all day, this is a wrong perception, the purpose of FIRE is to make us as humans become completely free humans who are not chased by work deadlines and also insecure with termination of employment that can be experienced at any time.
although I am still far from being able to do this FIRE, but I personally really dream of being one of the FIRE activists, because the life they live is very perfect and free.