Growing up in poverty, raised by a single mother, wasn’t easy. Our apartment, riddled with cockroaches, echoed with the chaos of drinking, drugs, and family turmoil. This environment bred discontent, anxiety, uncertainty, and a deep sense of depression – baggage that felt as heavy as the lack of money.
To make matters worse, we were perpetually broke. Electricity shutoffs became so frequent on Warren Street that I lost count. As adulthood approached, a singular thought took root: if I could just make enough money, I could escape my mother’s path and finally find happiness, or at least afford it. This belief propelled me into the corporate world throughout my twenties.
Instead of college, I jumped straight into an entry-level sales job with a company that demanded six, sometimes seven days a week, ten to twelve hours a day. I wasn’t initially skilled, but I learned to navigate the role, then to excel.
My first large commission check led to the predictable purchases: a big-screen TV, a surround-sound system, and a DVD collection. By 19, I was earning over $50,000 annually – double my mother’s income. Yet, my spending outpaced my earnings, and credit card debt mounted. The solution, in my young mind, was clear: Make. More. Money.
I dedicated myself to work with even greater intensity. Promotions followed rapidly – store manager at 22, regional manager at 24. By 27, I had become the youngest director in the company’s long history. I was on the fast track, envisioning a clear path: Vice President by 32, Senior VP by 35 or 40, and a C-suite executive – CFO, COO, or CEO – by 45 or 50, culminating in the golden parachute. Success was within reach! I just needed to endure a few more years of corporate politics and bureaucracy. Keep climbing, and don’t look down.
But I did look up. And what I saw was unsettling.
A successful businessman once remarked, “You shouldn’t ask a man who earns $20,000 a year how to make a hundred grand.” This wisdom seemed to extend to happiness. The executives I admired, the VPs and higher-ups, were far from happy. In fact, many were miserable.
It wasn’t that they were inherently bad people, but their careers had profoundly altered them. They were quick to anger over minor issues, their faces etched with scowls and complaints, as if the world was against them. Some adopted a superficial optimism that convinced no one. Many were on their second, third, or even fourth marriages. Loneliness seemed to pervade their lives, surrounded by yes-men and women. And their health? That was another story.
Serious health problems were rampant: obesity, gout, cancer, heart attacks, high blood pressure – a catalog of stress and anxiety-related ailments. Some even seemed to wear their health issues as a grim badge of honor, as if it signified nobility or courage. A close colleague, on a similar career trajectory, suffered his first heart attack at 30, when I was just 28.
I told myself I would be different.
But what truly made me different? Simply stating it didn’t make it so. Everyone says they’re different, that they will do things differently, that things will change when they’re in charge. Just a little more sacrifice, a few more weeks, months, years until we “make it.” But then we arrive at that destination, wherever “there” is, and what happens? We don’t work less. We often work more. Longer hours, greater demands, increased responsibilities. We become slaves to our obligations, constantly on call, tethered to technology, juggling emails, texts, and calls. Yet, unlike doctors, we aren’t saving lives. We can barely save ourselves.
Money hadn’t brought these men happiness, nor had it provided genuine security. The relentless pursuit of more money had crippled them, transforming them, making them less secure. I knew individuals earning half a million dollars annually who were in such financial disarray they couldn’t qualify for a car loan. And they all shared a commonality: they once believed they would be different.
Like them, I had assumed that reaching a certain level of financial success would eliminate money worries. But the truth, looking back to Warren Street, was that our poverty wasn’t due to a lack of money itself. It stemmed from poor decisions. Repeatedly poor decisions.
Today, my income is significantly less than my peak earning years. Last year, as a 31-year-old independent author, I earned considerably less than my 19-year-old sales self. Yet, I’ve paid off debt, traveled, and feel more secure. Crucially, I no longer fixate on money.
This, I realize, is what it feels like to be free from money worries – a feeling that didn’t require accumulating vast wealth to achieve. It turns out that consistent good decisions, not money, are the key to releasing the anxiety that binds us. Once I let go of that worry, there was nothing left to worry about.
“What It Feels Like” is an excerpt from Everything That Remains.
