WHEN I WAS TWENTY-FIVE, working as an analyst at Fidelity Investments, I made over three hundred thousand dollars. I took my bonus, went to the Bloomingdale’s outside of Boston, tried on dozens of pairs of shoes, and left empty-handed. Some part of me felt jealous of people for whom money seemed to bring joy, ease, and happiness. A confirmation that they were on the right path. Gold diggers, I envied them—and anyone else who knew exactly what they wanted. Right around then, I started dating someone with money, the same man who, over time, feared that my career aspirations might conflict with his plans for me to be a doll in his house. We flew in his family’s private jet to his family’s multiple homes. But the more money I made and the more I was surrounded by wealth, the more I found myself recoiling from it all. I planned my getaway and quit Fidelity after four and a half years, hoping to do a pivot. Two months later I started on a new path at the University of Pennsylvania, enrolled in a joint-degree program between the School of Arts & Sciences and the Wharton School of Business. When I arrived on campus, I found myself steeped in a culture that seemed to prioritize drinking and partying over working and studying. So suboptimal, so inefficient. A colossal waste of time. This was the culture from which I was trying to escape, evinced by an offhand remark a coworker at Fidelity made to me one night: “I basically sit on my ass and do nothing and make millions. What could be better than that?”