We never set out to live like this

From me

Most of us start out trading our time, mental and physical resourceThe function of our biological machinery.Full definition (opens in a new tab)→ for a salary. The work might not engage us, but we take it anyway, telling ourselves it's temporary.

Work like that drains us faster than work we care about. By Friday there's nothing left in the tank. So we book the weekend away, buy a little treat, upgrade something that didn't need upgrading. We've earned it, after all.

And it works… for a while.

Then Monday arrives with the same job that drained us. Except now there's a bill for the relief, and paying it means needing the job a little more than last week. The more we need it, the more trapped we feel, which sends us looking for relief again.

We never set out to live like this. But when mental resourceThe ability to creatively conjecture, rationally criticise, and focus.Full definition (opens in a new tab)→ runs low, we fall back on defaults shaped before we could question them, by marketers paid to promise that buying things will make us respected, happy and fulfilled.

Money can create the conditions for a good life. But left to our unexamined defaults, it funds a loop where we trade more and more of our time for less and less of what we actually wanted.

The loop doesn't end when we can finally afford the relief. It ends when we no longer need it.

Read the full piece →

From others

Author Morgan Housel on the impulse to splurge after hard work:

"After twelve months of Excel modeling until 3 a.m., you have an urge to prove to yourself that it was worth it, offsetting what you sacrificed. It's like someone held underwater for a minute — they do not take a calm breath when they surface; they gasp. A lot of spending is gasping."

Source: The Art of Spending Money (2025)

Social psychologist Erich Fromm on where our wants come from:

"Modern man lives under the illusion that he knows what he wants, while he actually wants what he is supposed to want."

Source: Escape from Freedom (1941)

For you

What are you buying because you're gasping?

P.S. The money cycle, with earning and consuming sped up. We trade more time for more money, and more money for more relief, so we stay stuck in the loop. Less is left to invest in our independence, while time keeps depleting.