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The Fire Lives Where Contradictions Collide
Standard financial advice says: save hard, sacrifice, and live frugally now so you can enjoy freedom later.
And there’s truth there. If you save and invest aggressively, you increase your chances of not just financial freedom, but financial flourishing.
But everything has a hidden cost.
When I was only saving, I wasn’t traveling much.
When I was only saving, I wasn’t fully following curiosities or exploring.
When I was only saving, I gave – but I gave less.
As James 4:14 puts it in The Message: “Your life is like the morning fog – here for a little while and then it’s gone.”
That’s the danger of saving without living: you might get to the milestone you were waiting for, only to realize the best moment to explore, experiment, and follow curiosity didn’t have to wait…
One of the driving factors in my life is asking: what would my future self think or say? What do I not want to look back on and regret? I can always find more ways to accumulate money. Work will always be there in some form. But gathering memories that make life full – there is no better time than now. I don’t want to wait to make my best memories later. I want to start piling them up now. That’s why I’m doing both: because now is the best time to save and invest, but now is also the best time to live.
Bill Perkins, in Die With Zero, makes a similar point. Do you really want to wait until you’re 70 to try the things you’re curious about? What are some of the things that you’re waiting to do and slapping some future date on it? Some experiences are simply better when your body and energy are at their peak. Why not enjoy them now? Why wait?
And here’s the truth: you don’t have to be stacked and resourced to do everything you want to do – it’s about being strategic.
Perkins also argues that your younger years are the best time to take risks – recovery is easy. That idea stuck with me. It’s one reason I’ve moved so much, even if from the outside it might look unstable. My take? Why not try the places I’ve been curious about? Why not dive into learning and experiences while I can? What do I have to lose? Money is a renewable resource, and moving or exploring new paths doesn’t have to be costly. Sure, some choices could have gone straight into investing, but wealth isn’t only measured in dollars. It’s also built through the rabbit holes you follow, the risks you take, and the curiosity you feed.
One of my teachers from New Zealand once said something that stuck with me: find a way for contradictions to coexist in your life; it was the first time I ever heard my life philosophy from someone else. I think magic is found when you do both – sacrifice and adventure can coexist together.
It’s not easy. It can feel almost impossible to chase two opposing goals at the same time. I would have more money today if I hadn’t pursued certain experiences, moves, curiosities, and rabbit holes. But I also would not be the person I am today. I remember looking at the costs of some of the things I did, thinking, there is no valid reason for me to do this, I could really take this and invest it elsewhere to produce a more tangible outcome. Man… I’m grateful I followed my intuition. Growth is found beyond the price tag and beyond your comfort zone.
When I look at where I am, I see – this is working. The trade-offs… the coexisting… the contradictions… they’re not easy, sometimes it’s confusing, sometimes it’s stressful in the short term… but it’s been worth it, and constantly stretching me to push the boundaries.
Jeff Bezos calls this the Regret Minimization Framework. His approach is to project yourself forward to age 80 and ask: which choice will I regret less? That lens has guided many of my decisions. I’d rather live with fewer regrets than more money and fewer memories.
And I have this feeling that I won’t regret investing in experiences and curiosities today – just a feeling, but one I trust.
Watch Bezos explain it here: Jeff Bezos on the Regret Minimization Framework
One thing that helped me was learning to need less. The less I chased gadgets, trends, or temporary fixes, the more space I had – for curiosity, travel, relationships, and saving. Owning less made room for living more.
So my philosophy? Do both.
Aggressively travel.
Aggressively explore.
Aggressively live.
But also – aggressively save and invest. Because once you cross a certain threshold, your money starts working harder than you do. At that point, the balance tips.
Work Hard. Play Hard.
The first $100k is the real milestone. It’s the hardest because it comes purely from hustle and discipline – you don’t have much compounding yet, so it’s all on you. But once you cross that line, the momentum shifts. At a 7% return, $100k grows by $7,000 a year without lifting a finger. That’s half the way to $250k, which can start providing a sustainable flow of income.
And $1M? That’s the true starting milestone – enough to cover living expenses at 4%–10% per year, give you options, and let you play the game differently.
Reaching that level isn’t about stopping – it’s about shifting. Once you’ve built your foundation, the goal is to keep investing, but from a different posture. You’re not invincible, but you are different. You’re no longer just surviving or scraping – your money has momentum. At that point, investing isn’t about desperation, it’s about direction. The question becomes: how can this money reflect the life I want to live, not just the security I want to keep?
Because in the end, the real cost isn’t in saving or in living – it’s in believing you had to choose one over the other.
One life, folks… that’s all you get. Make that thing a damn party.
This content is for informational purposes only — not professional advice. Consult a qualified professional before making any major decisions.