Perhaps one of the most overlooked privileges is not wealth itself, but having enough margin in your life to respond to reality. Over the last few years, we have become fluent in the language of privilege, speaking easily about financial privilege, pretty privilege, racial privilege, passport privilege, educational privilege and social privilege, and in doing so we have become increasingly aware that people do not all start from the same place and that some doors open more easily for some than for others. Yet there is one form of privilege that seems to receive far less attention, and that is the privilege of being able to do something with the information you have, not simply knowing, but acting, because the truth is that information alone changes very little. We like to imagine that if people only knew better, they would do better, and entire industries are built around this assumption, from self-help books and documentaries to podcasts, awareness campaigns, public health initiative...
Today I asked someone what having enough money looked like to them. They said it would mean no longer being bound by work — the freedom to show up when they wished, to come and go without the burden of schedules, to become master of their own time. It was a practical answer, relatable and familiar. But it made me turn inward. I began to wonder what my version of “having money” is — not in the conventional sense, but in the intimate, unspoken meaning I carry around quietly. And what came to me was this: To have money, for me, would be to have the privilege of being still. Not rushing. Not planning. Not calculating, budgeting, or negotiating with the endless list of “shoulds.” Not living one step ahead of myself like a person forever chasing the next instruction. Just… still. Because the moment money enters our hands, something else enters with it — movement. Bills. Obligations. Savings. Investments. The constant mental gymnastics of “what now, what next, what if.” The in...