I’m really into the TV show Downton Abbey, and lately I’ve come to take one of the characters as a role model of mine, and it’s telling that that role model is the Butler. Still a position to aspire to but squarely in the lower classes. I think there’s a balance, but engaging with your own life, whatever that is probably leads to more happiness to continuous aspiration. So many of our billionaires seem miserable. Even more so if you pine for that life to the absence of caring for your own.

It’s interesting how society never really teaches you how to have enough. But, of course, having more doesn’t really change your position. For the most part, unless you’re a top billionaire, relatively speaking there are still so many people above you. If my career took off like a rocket, it actually probably wouldn’t change my position much.

And being wealthy or famous or successful is just a set of activities. Ones that in some way, aren’t that much different from the activities you can pursue as an upper middle class person.

There are so many activities that I can pursue that I enjoy, maybe more than I would enjoy the activities of a billionaire. In my heart I think I know there’s something great in a moderate life. Something filled with friends and family and personal challenges and triumphs. But I’m certainly not immune to the world of comparison we live in.