The Okay Line

I feel everything in this essay very deeply:

By most objective measures, I’m doing quite well, financially … But there’s this hum underneath everything. This feeling that no matter how much I accumulate, I’m never going to feel financially “okay” — which is as much a state of mind as it is a number.

I think it began for me when I started to think about retirement. How much would I have to save to think we’ll be okay? What about the stuff we can’t predict? You very rarely come into unexpected money, but it’s pretty common to have hidden expenses.

And then it spilled over into pre-retirement life. What is enough? Where is the “okay” line, where you actually feel okay and not just rationally acknowledge that you’re okay?

And then it’s not just me. It’s this next generation. Will they be okay? And if they’re not okay, that’s going to impact all of us.

But mostly, I loved this piece near the end:

Be suspicious of any analysis that makes you feel only helpless. The doom-scroll economy benefits from your nihilism … Some of the doom is real. Some of it is a very specific class of writer describing their own anxiety and universalizing it. In other words, take everything with a grain of salt.

Thank you for this reminder.

And passing this along in case it resonates with you, too.