- What if the Good Life Requires Giving Up Some Freedom? - September 15, 2026
- What Climbing Grouse Mountain Taught Me About Financial Freedom - August 18, 2026
- My Apartment Gave Me Something That Money Can’t Buy - August 4, 2026
For most of my adult life, I thought freedom meant depending on no one.
That’s why I choose to quit my stressful job and travel the world in my 30s. Obsessively saving and investing was the key to finally not have to answer to anyone. I had no boss, no commute, and no home. I had zero obligations.
Having grown up with little control over my life, this was a huge relief. I’d spent most of my childhood, trying to meet other people’s expectations, and much of my career doing things I disliked for money.
When I finally escaped, autonomy felt like wealth. And once I had it, I never wanted to give it up. I became fiercely protective of my freedom and that was one of the reasons I resisted having a child for so long.
I knew what children required: time, repetition, responsibility, surrendering control over your own schedule. After spending years building a life where nobody could tell me where to be or what to do, parenthood looked less like an expansion of my life and more like voluntarily giving some of that freedom back.
I was also afraid of passing down my generational trauma. What if I became controlling, resentful, or trapped? What if having a child pushed me back into a life built around everyone else’s needs?
For years, being childfree felt like the safer choice.
Then my father-in-law said something that changed the way I thought about it.
He wanted grandchildren, but he told my husband and I that even if we never had children, he would love us unconditionally.
There was no guilt, no reminder of what parents are “owed” and no suggestion that we would disappoint him if we chose differently. He loved us either way.
Ironically, being given permission not to become a parent made it easier for me to choose to become one.
And when I did, I got exactly what I had feared.
Obligation.
Make lunch, change another diaper, then read the same bedtime story for the 30th time. Go to the playground and stand around for hours while my kid investigates a bug.
What the hell had I done? I had traded a life where I could wake up and spontaneously fly anywhere for a life where someone urgently needed me to peel a banana.
It was repetitive, boring, and relentless. But ever so slowly, I started noticing the returns.
A kiss and a hug in the morning, completely unprompted. My son spotting me at daycare and running toward me so fast he nearly knocked over another child. The way he always wants to be near me. The things he remembers that I taught him. Giggling at my stupid jokes like I’m the funniest person in the world.
It occurred to me this didn’t come out of nowhere.
All those boring tasks I gave up my freedom for were deposits into a relationship that gradually compounded into love.
As someone who has spent most of her adult life writing about money, I should have recognized the mechanism.
We understand compounding instinctively–invest a small amount every month, keep going even when it feels hard, continue for decades. At first, the progress barely registers, but overtime the power of compounding becomes obvious.
Relationships work the same way, except there is no brokerage account showing you that the balance went up. And because the payoff can take decades to become visible, it’s easy to mistake these deposits for chores.
Cook dinner. Drive your kids to school. Help someone move. Sit beside a friend when there’s nothing you can do to fix what’s happening.
I understood this much more clearly when my father-in-law was dying.
He had spent his life giving love freely, without keeping score. And when he could no longer give anything back, people came.
He could’ve paid for professional caregivers to help him. But it wasn’t money that made his daughter lovingly trim his nails and massage his feet. Money didn’t make his son clean him after he could no longer go to the bathroom by himself. Money didn’t make his wife coordinate an increasingly complicated web of in-home care, arrange for family from Hong Kong to see him one last time, and sit beside his hospice bed until the end.
At that time, I was nine months pregnant, sleeping poorly, and stressed out about becoming a new parent. It was not easy being available 24/7 for caregiving, losing whatever small amount of freedom I had left.
I was there because my husband needed me. Love is inconvenient, and that’s a part of the point.
More than 200 people came to my father-in-law’s funeral. By then, he had nothing left to offer any of them. No money he could use to impress them, no favours he could perform, and no career advantage he could provide. Eventually, not even the ability to take care of himself. But they came anyway.
It made me realize that money has limits.
It can buy you security, time, and the freedom to leave a job. It can help you get out of an abusive relationship and escape a life that is making you miserable.
But it can’t buy you love.
Once you gain freedom, you have to decide what to use it for.
When you have enough to walk away from the things that hurt you, building a life without obligation, without anyone ever needing anything from you may not make you happier.
The difference is whether obligation is imposed or freely chosen because someone matters to you.
Financial independence taught me that money gives you the power to choose. And parenthood taught me that one of the things worth choosing is, ironically, obligation. Not the kind where someone says, “I raised you, therefore you owe me”, but the kind where you show up because someone matters to you, even when it costs time, convenience, or freedom.
This isn’t about having children as an elder-care strategy. Nobody owes you love because you raised them. I’m talking about something broader: the relationships we spend decades building with children, partners, family, and friends.
Because one day, if we’re lucky, we will be old. Maybe 80. Maybe 90.
Our bodies will stop cooperating, our careers will be over, and whatever status we accumulated will become irrelevant.
Money can buy us a comfortable home and medical care. It can hire someone to cook for us, change our sheets, and help us use the bathroom.
But care isn’t the same as caring.
You can’t buy the years that make a daughter want to gently wash your hair, or a son to clean you up without making you feel ashamed.
You can’t buy a friend who has known you for 40 years and still plays Settlers of Catan with you when you can barely tell wheat from sheep.
By 80, it may be too late to start building those relationships.
If someone comes when you are old, sick, tired, and have nothing left to give, it won’t be because of something you did that week. It will be because of thousands of boring, ordinary moments, repeated for decades.
Some obligations are how relationships are built: Make lunch, read the story again, show up when it’s inconvenient. The early deposits don’t look impressive, but neither does investing $500 a month when your portfolio is tiny. The magic only becomes obvious after years of consistency.
Financial independence can buy back your time. What you do with that time is up to you. But some of the best returns may come from giving it to the people you love. Just like wealth, love compounds too.
Note: I recently read very intriguing book called “Time Freedom: Rethink Your Work and Money to Create a Life You Love Now“, by Brian Herriot. It’s about how to create flexible work and build passive income to make it all balance out. I get a lot of requests to read books and this one really stands out because of the wonderful storytelling. Check it out here!
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Loved this so much. Thank you. I’ve been following you guys for years and this post really showed personal growth and self awareness on a deeper level.
Aww thanks for following us for so long! This really means a lot coming from a longtime reader.
What wonderfully thought-out piece. Since I turned 50, I have concentrated on relationships. We can’t take things with us; we can leave behind love. I want to be remembered for my kind generosity. Blessings to you.
“We can’t take things with us; we can leave behind love”
Love this! 100% agree and glad you are focusing on relationships. The older I get, the less I care about status, fame, money, etc and the more I care about relationships.
Oh so beautiful! And so true!
As a parent of teenagers who are thriving and flourishing, I’d also add that the investment of being present to your young child now will come back to you tenfold. Listening to their observations, making eye-contact and smiling, empathizing with their hurts, taking time to play… it’s all emotional and relational capital: by building their self-esteem and confidence, we help them become healthy teenagers and happy young adults. That, in turn, means less worry and trouble for us parents down the road!
The same goes for our neighbours. When we nourish relationships with those around us, we build and strengthen a safety net, both for today and the future. Regardless of how climate/social collapse impacts us individually in the next years, just knowing the support is there and feeling surrounded can be reassuring right now.
Thanks for this. I love reading your blog and the direction it’s taking!
“investment of being present to your young child now will come back to you tenfold….Listening to their observations, making eye-contact and smiling, empathizing with their hurts, taking time to play… it’s all emotional and relational capital”
Aww. Thanks for sharing this. I’m learning a lot about about human beings through parenting, and this is one of the biggest lessons.
Glorious. Thank you. I love the journey you are on and how it’s impacting your life and world, and that you’re sharing it.
Thanks, Tom!
Absolutely beautifully said. Thank you for sharing 🙂 .
Thanks for reading and always being so supportive, APL!
waw. this is so beautiful and well written. I loved reading it. what great parents!
Thanks, melissa!
Your last few blogs have been on point! You are able to interconnect money, emotion, and personal growth, turning them in astounding short stories. Love them!! Did you guys get some magical tips from The Globe and Mail?
Keep it up! I hope to still hear from you when you are 80 and 90. Stay connected with us!! Love you guys!
Thanks for always being so supportive, Eniee!
Globe and Mail was definitely helpful in improving our writing–especially in terms of challenging us to write from a wider perspective and how it affects society as a whole rather than an anecdotal, individual’s perspective.
If we’re lucky to live until our 80s/90s, we should definitely stay connected!
All very true. Our daughter is now an adult, and seeing her caring about us is the biggest reminder that mutual love has been nourished throughout her childhood.
Aww, that’s so sweet! What wonderful parents you are!
I saw the headline and thought oh wow, why do our Millennial Revolutionaries quote Xi Jin Ping now? Just joking, please don’t bite.
Love freely given does not always come back to you. Sometimes what you get in return is a big kick in the butt.
In my not so humble opinion, drawing parallels between love and money is gross and inappropriate.
However, giving love is still worth it. Love, just for its own sake.
I’ve totally gone over to the darkside. Mwahahahaha!
It’s true, love doesn’t always come back to you, and some people will take advantage. But that’s why boundaries need to be set.
Interesting that you think parallels between love and money is gross, because the parallel is actually compounding (which I’m using money to demonstrate, since this a finance blog), not money. In fact I’m making the point that you can’t buy love with money. You could easily substitute the investing concept with rabbit reproduction, fitness routines, or whatever you want that grows exponentially.
I follow you completely, up to the point where you have to math shit up. Love has its own math, that’s it.
It is still worth it because it makes you a better person, whatever you receive in return for your love. And that is the part which is hard to quantify.
Loving your children is the most gratifying form of love, you become God for them. And the most demanding too, since it requires you to give up control so that they can become healthy, autonomous, adult human beings.
I know how close to your heart parenthood is. Thank you for sharing this with us.
Amazing article. Thank you for writing this. Your articles are really making me reflect on my own life and decision to have children
I’m glad they’ve been helpful, Brianna! Having kids isn’t for everyone, it’s very personal decision that’s dependent on personality, values, life stage, etc. Society either glamorizes it or makes it seem like never ending agony. The truth is somewhere in between. Whatever decision you make, it will be the right one because you know yourself best.
All those boring tasks I gave up my freedom for were deposits into a relationship that gradually compounded into love.
–
I don’t understand the scorekeeping concept.
You do things because you want to.
Not because you expect something in return.
You didn’t give up anything.
You made a choice.
Anyone who is constantly keeping score is going to be a very miserable person.
She didn’t (do things to) keep score. It was an observation after the fact: “All those boring tasks I gave up my freedom for were deposits into a relationship that gradually compounded into love.”
You explained it even better than me, Peter 🙂
Really? You gave up your freedom? Per Peter, is this an after the fact observation?
Sorry. That just rubs me the wrong way.
When it has to be specifically pointed out, that’s where it becomes strange to me.
Beautifully written. I’ve had similar thoughts in the last couple years as well. 🩵
Thanks, Brenna. I’m glad you had similar thoughts as well 🙂
From the title, I thought this post was a response to the 2025 Netflix comedy special, “The Good Life” by Mike Birbiglia but I guess not. In the show, he says that he and his wife (unlike their parents) are the opposite of emotionally distant with their daughter. In fact, he says, “We are too much. Whatever too much is, we will find out when she is an adult.”
I agree with what you say about parenting. It feels nice to give love without expecting a “return” but then getting some nevertheless. But I also feel like many people with kids now are doing some weird generational exchange with our children to correct for the emotional frugality many of us perceived for own parents. We grew up starved for attention and affection, and as a result, we are showering our own kids with love, knowing that it has to better than the opposite.
If there is such a thing as too much, we will find out soon enough.
I think they don’t have to be mutually exclusive. You can shower your child with love but also set boundaries. Being kind to them doesn’t mean never teaching them resilience or coddling. One of the biggest things I learned from parenting is that two things that are opposite can be true. It’s just as hard being with your kids as being away from them. You can be loving, and also set firm boundaries.
That said, I agree with you that all the parenting advice online is very confusing and can easily misconstrued as permissiveness. I’ve been trying to figure it all out myself and have gotten it wrong many times, but I will never stop trying and improving.
This. At 49 and fully financially independent I started nursing school. I will graduate in 4 months. This means I get up pre-dawn, drive in the dark or ride a bike in the rain without any financial reward. At the moment I have a lot of freedom as I am writing a final paper. I am about to test whether giving up hours of my day to nursing will create a good life for me too. All the best to all out there on the search.
Congrats on your FI-ness and on starting nursing school! It’s a very giving profession and I’m very grateful you chose it. There were so many kind nurses that I met when I went through IVF and they made the whole ordeal less painful with their kindness and empathy.
I see another book in this post! The things money can’t buy, the love of family and friends and the happiness you create for yourself by giving of yourself to others. Those create a different kind of wealth and it’s just as valuable. Robin Sharma wrote about this as well, it’s a great book.
Thanks, Erica! I have put the Robin Sharma book on my TBR list.
Hi Firecracker. This is so beautifully written. I had my kid 3 years ago and felt like I lost all the independence taking care of her at first..and it was a HARD transition from having a carefree life to being a MOM.
But she gives us so much joy that I never knew existed before.
We are almost FIRE (thanks to you guys I started investing in 2018..) and can’t wait to start our new chapter of our life being free from our jobs.
You guys are amazing and thank you for all you do!!
I 100% feel you. It’s a crazy identity shift and very exhausting, but it transformed me in so many ways.
Congrats on almost FIRE-ring! Yay! So glad we were helpful in your journey!
This was a really beautiful take on life and love. Thank you. Your father-in-law sounds like such a special man. I won the lottery by having a similar father. He all taught us about money, but more importantly how to love unconditionally.
Wow, you are so lucky to have a dad like that. Amazing.
I love every word of this!
Thanks, Heather!
Beautiful FIREcracker! Could this be your wisest, most inspiring post yet?!
(Long-time reader and admirer)
Aww, that means a lot coming from a long-time reader. Thank you! I’m glad my posts have evolved over time. I guess life experience does that to you.
Some of your best writing and I really connected to it because we also have our own young child but also waited until later in life to have her for many of the same reasons.
Thanks, ML! Love your story too. How are things in Ecuador?
While I get your point on compounding love, equating stability with a trap misses the mark.
Viewing homeownership as a loss of freedom rather than a foundation for security stems from a deep, irrational fear of commitment.
Liquid wealth lets you run away, but real life requires roots.
Real estate isn’t a cage; it’s an asset that builds generational equity and a physical space to nurture the exact relationships you’re talking about.
Constant mobility can easily just be an excuse to avoid real responsibility.
True freedom isn”t constantly fleeing obligation .. it’s having the maturity to build a home and stay.
beautiful article. WOW. You are so right and that is why showing up for people is important. Love you two, love your writing and energy and what a journey you have been on. I love the progression and what you are sharing. THANK YOU.
Thanks, Alan! Can’t wait for us to play Settlers of Catan together when we’re old and gray 😀
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The question about freedom and the good life is a thoughtful reminder that meaningful choices often involve tradeoffs. Mistral Large 4 can help with writing, document questions, and comparing options when someone is organizing a personal decision or research. Mistral Large 4
This is an interesting question because freedom can mean very different things depending on time, money, health, and the kind of life someone wants to build. The reflections here are a useful reminder that intentional trade-offs can sometimes create more room for what matters. I also use Instinct AI to explore and visualize creative ideas: Instinct AI.
I like the idea that freedom is not only the ability to escape, but also the ability to choose what is worth showing up for. The compounding metaphor fits creative work too: small, repeatable experiments become meaningful over time. I use Kenerate AI to turn rough ideas into images or short video clips, which makes it easier to keep creating while I iterate.
I like the distinction between freedom from something and freedom for something; the idea that small, repeated acts compound into relationships feels especially true. Creative work can compound in a similar way when a rough idea becomes a series of small, repeatable experiments. For teams exploring visual storytelling, Flux Lora is an interesting browser-based place to explore image workflows and a roadmap for dedicated LoRA model discovery and training. The reminder that time is a resource is a good reason to keep those experiments focused on people and projects that matter.