Last month I turned 40. I’m reasonably happy, reasonably healthy, and unreasonably successful. I’ve worked for twenty years to make money and banish insecurity. I’m an immigrant who has lived in the US for virtually all of his life, raised by parents who aggressively pursued capitalism and idealized affluence. I’ve spent a great deal of time trying to balance work with the other, far more important parts of being human, and I’ve mostly failed.
A big round birthday is a great opportunity to try and reset, so this year I took a big step back from work and started prioritizing my quality of life. After habitually saving and investing virtually all of my earnings for decades, I’m spending money and trying to focus on supporting people rather than buying products—a challenge in this day and age. Since one of the biggest things that drags me down these days is the weather in the Pacific Northwest, I bought a house in Palm Springs, CA so I could split my time between two gorgeous parts of the country (my businesses are based in Washington so moving full-time is impractical for now).
Meanwhile, the world is falling apart. Biodiversity is plummeting almost as fast as sea ice is retreating, the gulf stream is shutting down, the west is burning, and we’re still talking about Twitter X and fighting about Trump DeSantis. I’m living my fullest life just as it’s slipping away from me and the rest of the world in one giant, inevitable collapse.
I own an expensive EV but it’s powered by the solar array on my roof and it replaced two other vehicles. I have two homes but one of them used to be an Airbnb and now gives me a place to stay in the winter without burning nearly as many fossil fuels to stay warm. I eat terrible prepackaged foods bought at a store that’s more interested in information trading than in keeping people healthy but I’m a pescatarian who’s slowly trying to make his way toward a fully vegan diet. I fly several times a year now but I didn’t for a full decade while I was buried in work and unable to stop. I’m an app developer who helps people use less paper but I’m funneling more money into the richest company in the world so they can sell $3,500 goggles to people who will shield their eyes from the world and hide in their air conditioned basements instead of facing reality and marching in the streets.
I have more than I deserve and more than anyone can reasonably expect to have from here on out. I spent so long telling myself that I was just postponing the indulgences that other people enjoyed, but now that I’m stopping to look around I realize that they’re all poisoned. Privilege is stolen from other people. It’s hard to give up, and I won’t succeed, but it’s time to dismantle the concept of success and I hope I can shed these habits and the shame I feel before the lights go out on us all. Maybe then whatever comes next will have a chance. After all, our unlearned lessons are written in stone in the ground below us.