Author here. I addressed those 2 points in another blog post: https://danielvassallo.com/only-intrinsic-motivation-lasts/ https://danielvassallo.com/only-intrin

Author here. I addressed those 2 points in another blog post: https://danielvassallo.com/only-intrinsic-motivation-lasts/ https://danielvassallo.com/only-intrinsic-motivation-lasts/ In short, no I'm fully cognizant that satisfaction is not dependent on how much I spend or earn. And I did my best to keep my standard of living abundantly within my means, even when my income grew 10X over the last 9 years. However, when you have other people living with you, it's not as simple to disrupt their life by moving somewhere else, or making drastic changes. We never eat out, we don't go on expensive vacations, kids will go to public school (in preshool now), and we have no extravagant hobbies. Nevertheless, just our housing and insurance costs are $84K/year in Seattle. That's before food, utilities, etc.