I Don't Want to Die Poor: Essays

You have to be able to afford choice. Happiness is expensive.

It’s adorable to believe we live in a meritocracy, but so much of certain types of success is dictated by everything else besides perceived special talents and abilities. It’s about privilege, and how that privilege gives way to greater access and larger means than are offered those who lack it.

get so tired. So very tired. I worry it may never end, no matter what I do. Sometimes, you worry so much and your fears and trauma trample so hard over you that you just don’t want to get up. You don’t know what to do anymore. Everything else you used to do no longer works. You don’t have the desire to try anything else. Then people pile their prob

He countered the way a thoughtful, socially conscious person who quit a job for one that felt like it mattered more in terms of contributions to society is expected to: stressing that money wasn’t the end all, be all. Or the key to happiness. Yeah, yeah, I get that lesson, but in terms of my life, having financial security means I can embark on the

You cannot allow yourself to be consumed by the standards set by others or any misguided reaction to the knowledge that everyone’s journey is different.

didn’t know what to think about myself based on my own metrics, so it was ill-advised to measure myself by his.

I cringe at using verbiage that borders on saccharine, but on a fundamental level, there has to be a greater love of self that supersedes setbacks, and the dangerous coping mechanisms we turn to in order to deal.

It’s one thing to intellectualize it, but critical thinking and analysis don’t make you feel it. To feel it is to make you empathetic in ways you previously thought were implausible.

It’s one thing to ask people to go cordless or consider a gym-less life, but should we be giving people platforms to share how they paid off their loans by forgoing health insurance, owning a car, having a place of their own? Why are we highlighting people as success stories who felt compelled to stunt their lives to this severity?