People like to complain about the economy. Scratch that, people like to complain in general. Even though many complaints are valid, I hope to challenge this mindset in this article. I’ll argue that many of us are entitled and that the world doesn’t owe us anything.

Origin Story

I grew up in northern Ontario in a middle-class family. My mom worked in public health as a dietician. My dad worked for his father’s excavation company for the first half of his career and as a municipal worker for the second half. They both worked hard to provide a certain quality of life for my brother and I. We travelled regularly, had a nice house, a cottage, and I felt wealthy growing up. My parents managed to fund my hockey career which cost between $5000 and $10000 per year from 12 to 18 years old. I will be forever grateful for their support.

My wife, Kayla, and I aim to replicate the quality of life we grew up with. I’m a high school teacher in Ottawa. I did my undergraduate degree in mathematics, went to teacher’s college, did my master’s in statistics, and will start my PhD in education in September 2025. Thanks to a little help from my parents, governmental loans and grants, and scholarships, I managed to get educated with minimal student debt. Working during the summers and tutoring and working as a teacher’s assistant during the school year was enough to support me financially. 

My master’s degree puts me in the A4 category of the pay scale below. I’m only in my third year of teaching full-time which puts me on the second echelon. We’ve recently negotiated a new salary grid so I can expect to make close to 80K next year and around 120K in 8 years.

Teachers have a high quality of life. They have the summers off work and are off for a week in March and a couple of weeks over the holidays. The summers off allow for another job if extra money is needed. I supplement my income with some tutoring and summer contracts. Our benefits and pension are solid. I currently work from 9 to 3:45 and have a daily preparation period. Sure, we often bring home the work, but overall, teaching is a solid gig if it provides you meaning. Not everybody can deal with kids and parents.

I met my wife at teacher’s college. She went on to do her master’s degree in counselling. She used to work for the government but now works for the University of Ottawa in mental health and has her therapy practice on the side. Therapy is the ultimate side hustle given the high price per hour. No job is perfect though. The emotional load of therapy is taxing and limits the number of hours one can do.

We are happy with our current career situations and expected future salaries. The PhD should open even more doors and allow for a higher hourly income. Our businesses and investments will likely provide passive income. I aim to work until I die, but already feel like I’m retired. Even though we’ve spent the last decade scraping by as students, we always felt incredibly fortunate and wealthy.

Not Rich, But Wealthy

We currently rent a nice place where we can start a family. Kayla walks to work at Ottawa U and I bike to work. Our commute takes approximately 25 minutes one way. The ability to walk or bike to work is a form of wealth. It allows us to decompress and automate our physical activity. We also save money on gas and share one vehicle. We also get to live out our environmentalist values which is another form of wealth. Not having to be stuck in traffic every day is priceless.

Our quality of life is surreal. We: 

• travel every year or few years
• go to concerts and events every few months
• eat at restaurants about once per week
• go out with friends
• host people
• take part in expensive hobbies such as hockey, golf, and gardening
• have good jobs and side hustle
• are educated
• live in a safe country and neighbourhood
• have access to healthcare and modern medicine
• benefit from public services such as bike paths, public transit, Uber, the Rideau Canal to skate on, outdoor rinks, free festivals and markets
• have cats
• have realistic dreams of owning a house and raising children
• live in Ottawa where opportunities are abundant
• have friends and family
• have free access to the internet, books, YouTube
• can afford to buy healthy food without worrying too much about the price
• have access to products from all over the world year-round
• have access to a smartphone and can communicate with everyone across the globe for free
• can afford a warm and safe shelter
• can afford nice clothing and afford to reinvent our closets once in a while
• can afford to choose what to believe and have the right to express our thoughts
• can work at coffee shops for the atmosphere and the drinks
• get paid when we take a sick day or vacation
• have meaningful jobs
• can invest in the stock market for a minuscule fee and minimal effort
• got married in a fancy venue without going bankrupt
• can get anything delivered to our door within a few days
• can give some of our money to charities
• are relatively young and healthy
• struggle more with consuming fewer calories than getting enough to survive
• grew up in relative abundance and safety 

Most of the goods above were not accessible to the richest individuals on the planet just a couple of hundred years ago. Yet, we take them for granted today. It’s arguably the best time to be alive in human history. There are unique challenges to this era, but I wouldn’t go back in time and switch spots with any other time periods.

The best part of living our rich life is that we do so responsibly. We automatically save towards these goals while investing the rest for our future selves. We’re able to save for a down payment for a house and save for retirement while enjoying life at the moment. 

Proper Attitudinal Stance

Gratitude is the proper attitudinal stance towards this abundance. Yes, life is hard. It always will be and that’s a good thing. An easy life is not meaningful. There’s a balance to be struck. Growing up in abject poverty and getting abused or neglected by your parents is far from optimal and this essay is not addressed to these folks. This essay is for the many W.E.I.R.D. people with similar or wealthier lives as my own. Compassion and generosity are the proper attitudes to adopt toward the less fortunate.
I don’t want this article to paint the picture of a perfect life. Our lives are far from it. We have been blessed in many regards and have been less lucky in other aspects. There’s no sense in playing the comparative victim game. You win some you lose some. Some people are luckier than others, and they have a moral responsibility to share the benefits of winning the cosmic lottery.

Read This Next

• Automate Your Finances
• I Will Teach You to Be Rich – Ramith Sethi
• The Happiness Hypothesis – Jonathan Haidt
• Superabundance – Marian L. Tupy & Gale L. Pooley
• Die with Zero – Bill Perkins
• What The Longest Study On Happiness Reveals
• If Money Doesn’t Make You Happy Then You Probably Aren’t Spending It Right
• Credit Card Optimization (2025)
• Our Plan to Purchase a Home
• Defining Well-Being
• An overarching Theory of Well-Being
• Hindsight Thoughts on Getting Married
• The Happiness Hypothesis – Book Notes
• Die with Zero – Book Notes
• Die With Zero – Implementation
• The 300 000$ Meeting
• Life Score: A Subjectively Objective Way to Evaluate your Life
• What is your Rich Life?
• The Wealthy Barber – Book Notes
• What is your Investment Goal?
• What I Learned from Tracking my Mood for 1000 Days