This contemplation is one of the first times I really considered the cost and suffering of building wealth. It is not that I didn’t understand that money, like everything else, has two sides previously, I did. But this was the first time I viscerally understood that a dominant pattern in Eric and my life — sacrificing now to create savings that would bring us future happiness — might actually be delusional on many levels.

First off, there is no guarantee that it would work, i.e. we might not be able to raise the money. Second off,  it dawned on me that even if we could acquire it, it might not make us happy. Finally, I got to the question of even if we could raise funds to retire early, and we were happy, it could only last for a finite period. Plus, of course, there was the weird world view lurking beneath the whole endeavor– if money was supposed to make us happy, why on earth were we so damn unhappy in the journey to try and acquire it? Why had the money we had  failed to make us happy already, when we needed it to the most, upon our  move to New York?

I am going to go ahead and keep this entry as close as possible to my own contemplation notes from the time. I will however make a few adjustments for readability and add some notes for understandability.

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Last night Eric again suggested we pack-up and leave NY and he look for a job elsewhere. I don’t know what to do. He doesn’t know what to do. We are so unhappy here. I started thinking what were the mistakes that got us here, to NY, to this point, in the first place? Two came to mind:

1) We didn’t consider the costs of uprooting our lives and moving. We didn’t accurately weigh the downside, instead choosing only to imagine the positives of an enriching job, a fun adventure, an opportunity for newness.

2) I believed that the happy, balanced, chill Alana I felt myself to be in San Fran was a fixed thing. That the qualities I loved about SF Alana abided in me. That those qualities, and my generally good fortunes, would follow me along to NY. I suffered a delusion of permeance that quickly came to bite me in the ass in my new NY life.

Now that I understand the wrong views that brought us here so clearly, now that I am suffering the costs, why do we stay? Why do we keep doing something that is causing us suffering? The answer is so clear — we want the pot of gold at the end of the journey (for you Dear Reader: literally, we want money. Enough money to fulfill our dream of early retirement. It is still, even now, 3 years after the initial contemplation, a hazy imaginary future, but it involves travel and lots of time together and n assortment of hobbies we enjoy. It is, in our minds, freedom). The path to our goal was taking too long in SF (Uber didn’t look like it was going to be the payday Eric had expected when he took the job), other options we had considered, a job in the Valley or at Microsoft, seemed like less lucrative than Eric’s current NY gig. Clearly, the singular root source of the problem here is gold/goal (to achieve that gold and the imaginary future we thought it would bring).  With this clarity, it seemed we had  two choices:

Option 1: If the goal is the gold than we go for it. “Chin-up Alana, stop whining, you choose gold, so no reason to fixate on happiness, health or anything else.” Those are all just distractions from the goal. There is no reason to whimper or wallow. It really is time to suck it up and go for it because, in theory at least, it is what we want. No one is forcing us toward this goal. There is no reason we can’t quit it. So if we don’t quite then might as well be all in. (Note to self: I can’t help notice the irony here –the goal/gold is supposed to make us happy, but the  path to obtaining it certainly does not. And once we have it, do I know for sure it will buy me what I want Do I know that once I have what I want I will be happy? After all, I thought NY was what I wanted and I am miserable here. Even if it does make me happy, for how long? Even ‘happily ever after’ is temporary, dashed by death or illness or calamity.

Option 2: Change the goal. Apply wisdom to undo the desire for the gold.  Below are my considerations aimed at option 2:

Let’s pretend we reach the goal; we have all the money we need for early retirement. So…

For how long will we have it? Where is my evidence from this world that prove duration can be short? Far shorter than what I want or what I imagine this ‘happily ever after’ to be. Two stories, that over the years have really hit my heart, come to mind:

1 — Eric had a co-worker at Google, she worked so hard and was so happy when finally, she had made enough for her own early retirement. Her husband and she bought a beautiful home down in Carmel and moved there. Six months later he died of a heart attack.

2 — The actor in Spartacus was just 40years old. He was beautiful, talented, after years of effort, he had finally landed a starring role in a hit series, his career was taking off. After the first season he was diagnosed with a rare cancer. Only months later he was dead.

Will I think it’s worth it later? What are the seeds of hurt that it causes?

Back when I was at my fittest, I was working out 17+ hours a week. My whole body hurt, I was itching to find more time in the day to have other hobbies besides just working out, I missed eating non-performance food. Even my blood work showed liver enzyme elevation from working out so much and eating so little. Still, I thought it was worth it for ‘the look’. In my head, I still remember the event where I put on an outfit and looked my best, possibly ever. That night I felt so proud and good. Now, years later, it makes me sad to look at those event photos and realize how hard I worked for a body hat I lost already. That I am unlikely to ever have back. What seemed worth all that sacrifice at the time sowed the seeds for future pain and shame and loss.

When I reach the goal will I even like it?

How many ebay boxes have I opened to find exactly what I ordered and to just not really like it? What about NY – it’s just what I ordered, the city, the house, but I am utterly miserable in both.

Does the goal/gold even get me what I think it buys? Will an early retirement feel like an eternal vacation? The gold was supposed to get me a comfortable NY life/adventure, but I’m not happy here at all. If we get in an RV and travel everywhere wont I miss home just like I miss SF now? In fact, right now the experience I want most is to go back to the past. It felt like we were super close to ideal, only Eric had to work so hard, at a company he didn’t like. Did chasing the goal actually bring me further away from the happiness and life I actually want?

When I consider what the gold actually buys other folks, I can’t ignore that even the wealthiest, seemingly happiest folks I know met with illness and death. My dad and stepmom were well off, in love, enjoying their retirement.

Another couple I know from work, also very much in love, enjoying their wealth and retirement, till the wife got cancer. Sure, she lived another 7 years, but in constant pain and in -and -out of the hospital. That also isn’t the ‘happily ever after’ I envision.

Even if I do get the gold, it doesn’t mean I will get the fantasy I think the gold will buy . In other words, even if I love the ebay dress, it doesn’t mean that when I walk into a room wearing it, everyone thinks I’m pretty and rich and fashionable.

I came to see that in my mind, the ‘happily ever after equation’  me+ eric+ money, that’s the fantasy. But we already have all three, so why am I not sitting in this New York loft feeling happy?

And how much do we hurt each other for the gold? For the imaginary fantasy we think it brings for us?  Eric’s jobs over and over dragging me away from friends and communities and homes I love. Me making him work to buy me more, to satisfy the expensive overlapping venn diagram of lifestyles we both enjoy. He ignoring me, deprioritizing our relationship, all the missed birthdays and holidays because of work. Me unwilling to settle for the quieter life he might enjoy and pushing for a city place as well.  We hurt each other today to have this fantasy life together in the future.

It is so clear to me now, money is a tool that could have never have made NY comfortable. Before we moved, we knew it was a dog-eat-dog city, a place that was a struggle to live. Both of us had lived there before in our 20s. But we believed this time would be different. We believed that money would insulate us, make a NY life more comfortable, hat it would buy us enjoyment.

But even Bill Gates, with his great fortunes, could not make the city clean and quiet. He could not make people less cold and rude. He could not make the city scape something other than its bleak, green less, concreate jungle.  These are things I hate. How could I think money was going to ‘solve’ them?

The house we bought was something we wanted and then it quickly became a burden. We were so irresponsible, we didn’t do enough due diligence buying the house because we had money, we felt like it didn’t matter because we could afford it. Money made us reckless.

Fear of not reaching the gold is why we didn’t take the alternative jobs that would have portended a different scenario for us – that now, in hindsight, with IPOs already done,  would have made us even more money. All our planning and fretting doesn’t guarantee us the us money we seek.

The questions to continue considering:

1) what about the cost of money –getting it and keeping it? Also losing it? I wouldn’t miss SF so much if I never had it. Right now, I wish I had stayed in Texas so that I didn’t have to continually compare SF to NY and find NY so lacking.

2) Duration – even if I do get the gold, and I get everything I want from it, for how long?

3) Do I even want what I get once I have gotten it? Eric and I so wanted the NY loft before we moved here, now we are struggling to get someone, anyone to take it off our hands for us.

4) Does it get us what we want?

5) What do we really want? ??? It’s some image of a nest, of us together, with pieces  from our memory. Ironic so many of them come from the SF days we just blew up… Can money get us there? It got us further away. Greed got us further away.