Consumerism

"Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify."

‒ Henry David Thoreau, Walden

After college, my first job was as a technical consultant. I spent that year intensely focused on scraping together enough money to buy a reliable car ‒ one that wouldn't break down in traffic on the freeway. Every dollar counted. Consumption wasn't even on my radar during that time; I was in survival mode. But things shifted when I transitioned into my second role, working full time as a Database Analyst at a fixed-income asset management firm in California. For the first time, I had financial stability ‒ and with that, a sense of comfort I hadn't known before.