Everyone feels like a fraud sometimes. And a lot of times before I hit the “Publish” button, I worry that my writing sucks. A lot of times it does.
But every once in a while, I write something that people love. That for some unknown reason, they’ll share, tell their friends, or even write to me about. Revisiting these articles always makes me smile.
Here are 10 of my all-time best:
1. The 5 Levels of Wealth — How To Know You’re Rich — Many ways to answer “How rich am I?” but this one is mine. Includes a powerful hack to feeling rich, even if you haven’t reached the upper levels.
2. Seven Things I Learned From the Financial Independence, Retire Early (FIRE) Movement — The concept of FIRE blew my mind in my late 20s. Nowadays I don’t aspire to retire anymore, but there’s still so much I’m grateful to have learned from the FIRE movement.
3. The “What I Don’t Want List” — Goals are commonly written as “What I want.” But thinking about “What I don’t want” can also be a powerful way to find success in life.
4. The Journey of Finding Satisfaction In Life — Wrote this one as I was entering my late 30s. Having spent my 20s trying to win the status games of money and power. It turns out life satisfaction comes more from choosing the right games to play, instead of trying to win every game.
5. This Is the First 10 Years of Your Career — An almost-true story of a young person navigating a turbulent first 10 years of their career, inspired by my own.
6. Why I Bought a Cheap Second-Hand Car — Somewhere out there, there’s a young guy who thinks people won’t respect him and girls won’t date him if he drives a basic car. This one is for you bro.
7. How I Paid Off My 58K Education Loan — My story on how I got out of 58K of education debt, through a combination of the Internet, credit cards and help from God.
8. How To Overcome Jealousy In Life — Jealousy is a useless emotion, yet all of us have to struggle with it. Here’s eight tips I’ve learned to overcome jealousy in life.
9. Why I Give My Parents Money — I give money to my parents for selfish reasons. This short essay explains why.
10. Time, Money or Love — Which Is Most Important? — Multiple friends have told me this is their favorite article of mine, ever. It’s one of my favorites too, and explores the relationships between time, money and love. Like my own “unifying theory of the universe.”
(Updated March 2024)