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The Accidentally Rich
Everybody wrote about this study in June. Not one of them was written by the man in the data.
An editor’s note. I held this piece for a while because there is something absurd about running a publication on living intentionally and then admitting in public that I am not entirely managing it. I published it anyway, for the obvious reason. And if you are reading this with a parent whose savings disappeared into a care facility, understand that your caution is not the caution I am arguing with. I am arguing with mine.
I closed the tab.
Flights to see the grandchildren, priced out, sitting in one window while my account balances sat in another. I had done the arithmetic twice that week already. I did it a third time, closed the browser, and told myself we would look again in the fall.
Nothing in the numbers said no. I have been running those numbers for thirty years. They said yes, comfortably, with room left over for a version of me who lives to ninety-four and needs more care than I can currently imagine.
Something else said no. And it had been saying no for a very long time.
