Live Rich Without Being Rich

The real purpose of money and what it can and cannot buy

Photo of amphibious Jurmala tourist by author

Every summer sea lion pups rest and snooze on the Jurmala, Latvia beach we live on. This photo op is both rare and random. It cannot be planned or bought and is not for sale. But its spontaneous improbability adds immeasurably to how we experience our beach.

A recent graduate of the Hampshire College that I entered nearly half a century ago contacted me for career and financial advice. She asked me about:

• FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) vs an opportunity to work for what she believes in at a non-profit
• The corporate job path vs self-employment and entrepreneurship,
• Living in hyper-competitive turbo-capitalist America vs living adventurously abroad…

And other Faustian bargain-type questions. Being self-employed since 1991, except for four years as a part-time prof in Riga Business School, I was severely underqualified to give job or career strategy advice.

But the conversation generated a question: how to present short-form usable, responses to these tradeoff questions she and so many talented and ambitious young people face. In today’s harsher winners take all tournament economy of inequality the playing field is now littered with land…