There's no such thing as financial freedom

We buried my grandma. A little over a month ago now.

We placed the urn containing ashes that are all that's left of a woman who was by far the most optimistic person I’d ever known in the ground next to my grandfather in a long forgotten cemetery in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

I'd only cried twice since she died. Briefly when I had to be the one to tell my dad that his mother was gone, and then at the funeral.

Then this morning I watched a youtube video, and of all things, that finally broke me. I left the house for work still trying to pull it together.

I'll link the video in case you're curious, but it wasn't about grandparents or death really, that was just kinda the catalyst. The video is called "QUIT MY $250,000 JOB after learning THIS about money".

I roll my eyes when I see titles like this.

Who are these people? $250K is such an insane amount of money to me I can't even fathom the way they just casually then say money isn't the most important thing.

Like yeah, no shit. If I knew my value in the workplace was a quarter of a million dollars I'd be cavalier about it too.

But this video changed my mind. Kind of.

You can watch it yourself but in a nutshell this youtuber told the story of why she quit her job and to unceremoniously spoil the video, her high profile job with a fat salary kept her working up until the moment that there were no more moments left for her grandfather, and she’d missed her chance to say goodbye.

That was it.

When she asked for an extension on an assignment to go say goodbye to her grandfather on his deathbed her boss refused and told her, "what do you think we pay you so much for?"

I started sobbing immediately. Not just crying, but fix your mascara before you leave the house, Ariel, dear God pull it together, sobbing.

This is the reality of the pursuit of money for most of us. The dream of what someday we could be, or do, will keep us from living in the present every time and all we’re left with is regret.

The last time I saw my grandma was 2022. She died and it’d been over a year since I last saw her in person. I regret that.

I didn’t have a good excuse even. I didn't have a great, high paying job. Actually I only even had on a regular basis half a job at the time. I spent the end of 2022, and most of 2023 trying to find a job.

Not just a job, but a career, a whole new path. I was so jaded on the film industry and it turns out I wasn't the only one. Work was still pretty dry post pandemic, and then the strikes took the rest of the work along with them, and at some point in there I just stopped caring what happened to the industry.

But anyways, I wasn't even busy. I was just trying to be busy. I was applying for jobs. I was sitting at home, just in case one of those jobs reached out.

I did all this, mostly for an industry that in the end I’ve almost completely cut ties with. I missed a chance to spend a couple days with my grandma in what would be her last full year of life because I thought it was the responsible thing to do to stay home, and look for work, and save money.

I will never get that year back.

And at the end of it I learned a lesson the hard way, a lesson that this girl on youtube shares in her video.

I forgot my why.

Why do I care so much about being wealthy or even financially stable?

To be with my family. To take care of the people I love.

I forget that too often. I have money and then never want to use it. I work so hard and then deny myself time off.

The same goes for a lot of us. We are chasing a dream of financial stability, financial freedom, but what happens when we get there?

Will we even know we've arrived or will the finish line inch forward forever making us believe we're never quite making it?

Will we reach our goal and immediately feel better and take all the time our family deserves?

Probably not.

People who have money like to talk on the internet about all the things their "financial freedom" affords them, but is it real or a hoax? Is financial freedom really what's making you feel free? Or is the freedom because of you and your own ability to say f you to anyone making you trade these moments you'll never get back for an extra buck?

Most jobs I’ve had since I moved to NYC at 18 years old have been for millionaires and in some cases billionaires. Yes, actual private jet owning billionaires.

And what have I learned from watching them?

They don't have what I really want.

Because what I really want isn't a private jet. I just want to buy my whole family plane tickets where I can reserve our seats together ahead of time.

What I want isn't a high paying job. It's a job where I can find some fulfillment in the work itself. One that allows me to live a decent life while still having time to spend with people I love.

And what I learned watching all these people who seemingly had the life I wanted is that their life was great in some ways, and kinda trash in others.

They didn't reach this financial achievement that most only dream about and take the accomplishment and focus on being a good person, who treats others well and gives back. They didn't hit these incredible financial milestones and simply invest some money and then enjoy their life.

They keep working. They keep expecting more from others for less, so they can keep theirs. They keep missing out on time with their families. They keep stressing about money.

It never stops.

You don't reach the goal and suddenly everything is fine. You will more likely than not chase that dream down every moment of your life, and completely miss the part where you already had what you really wanted.

To bring it all back to grandma, I think this video hit so hard because on some level it was teaching me a lesson that my grandma already knew.

After the funeral I was telling my brother about the time I had to interview someone who lived through The Great Depression for school. I called my grandma, and to start off my interview I jokingly just asked “so grandma how was The Great Depression?” And she replied “not that bad actually.” I laughed and she began to laugh and I told her “Grandma, I’m going to need a little more than that.”

And she did go into detail, I got much more. Enough to fill several double spaced pages in fact, the whole story of her childhood, but my main takeaway, my grandma was wrong, the depression was indeed bad, she was the part that was good, she was the reason she recalled it being “not that bad actually.”

My grandma was easily the most optimistic person I’ve ever known and probably always will be. I hate to ever say never but I know it’s highly likely I will never achieve her level of positivity.

She was so happy to simply be alive, she found joy in just that. Incredible.

This isn’t to discourage anyone from seeking financial gains. This isn’t to minimize the reality of hard financial situations.

The reality of money is that it does make a difference if you have it or you don’t.

And I can write all the articles I want but it won’t stop me from my own probably endless pursuit for more.

So maybe this is just a moment of clarity, something I can revisit when I inevitably learn again the hard way that money isn’t everything.

Financial freedom isn’t real. It’s a juicy idea influencers adopted to keep you hooked on their advice. You can’t be free from something so embedded in our society that you quite literally will struggle to survive without it.

You can hope to be rich, I still do, but will that free you? Will I feel free?

I think my grandma felt free. I think she cracked the code. Live easy and love hard.

You can’t control everything that happens to you. You can strive for more, but tragedy can come and take away everything you've worked for.

Money isn’t going to make me feel free. Allowing myself freedom from the stress of the endless pursuit of it just might.