A ‘Fuck Money’ Question of the Day
A Billfolder sent over a request to discuss Hank Green’s thoughts on when we need to say no to money, and why:
Hank Green explains that there have been many times in his career when he could have done something that would have made him more money, but he didn’t want to do that thing because “It wasn’t worth the stress, it felt icky, it relied on me exploiting relationships that I valued. Stuff like that.”
He started writing himself letters to catalog all the times he said “Fuck Money:”
So now, whenever I think to myself “If I did this thing, I could make more money, but I’m not going to for reasons,” I send an email to myself with all of my reasons and analysis. Every time, I put the same words in the subject line. For me, those words are “Fuck Money” but you can use whatever you want. So then, in the future, when it becomes clear that I have indeed made a decision that resulted in me not realizing an increase in net worth, I can at least look at the email past me sent saying why exactly he fucked me so hard.
Read Hank’s full post, and then let’s discuss: when do you make the choice to say no to money? Have you ever written out all the reasons why you weren’t taking a financial opportunity?
I’m lucky enough to finally be in a position where I don’t have to take every freelance job someone offers me, but for me that’s less about “fuck money” than “I don’t have enough time.” If I had a Time-Turner, you can bet I would be grabbing up nearly every job that came my way, because I don’t have enough money to tell any of it to fuck off yet.
Like Hank, I have said no to icky or scammy or “let’s exploit your relationships” jobs, but in the freelancing world those jobs are highly correlated with low pay rates, so it’s a win-win.
What about you?
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