following a script (for most of my life, I had followed a script about how life should be, always trying to choreograph my future; I took classes with the sole intention of getting the best grade possible; I did not change radically as a person because nothing was at stake).

What I want to keep doing, such as mentoring young people, writing, teaching, sharing ideas, connecting people, and having meaningful conversations, is worth fighting for.” For me, testing out different ways of structuring my life now is a win‑win proposition. I’m lowering the odds that I’ll be unhappy in the future all while crafting a life I’m more and more excited to keep living.”

By my late 20s, I had oriented my entire life around work. I was always thinking about how I could get a better job or a higher salary.” keeps many trapped in a pseudo‑freedom where one is free from absolute oppression but not free enough to act with a high degree of agency (but has given us the freedom to earn money and spend it as we please, work in different fields, and have some control over our lives).

Play online, access classic NES™ and Super NES™ games, and more with a Nintendo Switch Online membership.The pathless path has helped me see that quitting my job was never about escaping work or living an easier life, it was about using the gifts I received from my parents to benefit others.” the deliberate pursuit of a positive version of freedom (figuring out what to do with freedom once we have it is one of the biggest challenges of the pathless path).

When I quit, my mindset shifted immediately and I looked at every monetary transaction with the intensity of a financial auditor.” If we don’t define ‘enough,’ we default to more, which makes it impossible to understand when to say no.” As I was growing up, work was such an obvious goal of life that I never paused for a moment to question it.” Economist Daniel Kahneman found that ‘ the importance that people attached to income at age 18 also anticipated their satisfaction with their income as adults.'” (Note: The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel also talks about how views on money are formed early in life)

I had no master plan to quit my job. Even now, several years after doing so, when people ask about my journey, I’m more confused than you might expect. Choosing to leave full‑time work was not a single bold decision but a slow and steady awakening that the path I was on was not my path.”