F*ck you clarity
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Everyone wants “fuck you money.”
The number where you can walk away from anything. Where you never have to take shit from anyone. Where money stops being a constraint and starts being a scorecard.
You’ve calculated your number. $5 million. Maybe $10 million. Enough to live off the interest. Enough to do whatever you want. Enough to finally pursue the thing you actually care about.
Here’s the problem: You don’t know what that thing is.
You say you want fuck you money. But you don’t want the thing that comes before it. The thing that makes fuck you money actually useful.
Fuck you clarity.
Knowing exactly what you’d do if money didn’t matter. What you’d build. What you’d create. How you’d spend your days. What problem you’d solve. What work you’d choose even if it paid nothing.
Most people avoid this clarity like a disease. Because the moment you get clear on what you actually want, you lose your excuse.
You can’t blame money anymore. You have to admit you’re not broke. You’re just scared to want the thing you actually want.
The Man Who Had The Number And Still Didn’t Quit
Kurt Vonnegut spent his 20s and 30s working in public relations at General Electric. Good job. Good salary. Good benefits. Making more money than his parents ever did.
He was also writing novels at night. Rejecting them during the day. Showing up to work. Hating every minute. Telling himself “when I have enough money, I’ll quit and write full time.”
He set a number. One year’s salary at GE saved in the bank. That was his threshold. That was when it would be “safe” to quit.
He sold his first story to Collier’s in 1950. Got $750. Then another for $950. Then two more. By late 1950, he’d banked more than a year’s GE salary.
He’d hit his number.
He still didn’t quit.
He kept showing up. Kept writing press releases. Kept pretending the number was the thing holding him back. Because the number wasn’t about safety. It was about permission. And even when he gave himself permission, he didn’t believe he deserved it.
Then something shifted. Not the bank account. Not another story sale. Just exhaustion. He got tired of waiting for the perfect moment to feel less scary.
In January 1951, he quit. No safety net beyond what he’d saved. Three kids. No guarantee the stories would keep selling. Just clarity. He knew what he wanted. To write. Not as a side project. Not “someday.” Now.
His editor Knox Burger was shocked. “I never said he should give up his job and devote himself to fiction. I don’t trust the freelancer’s life, it’s tough.”
Vonnegut didn’t care. He moved his family to Cape Cod. Got a day job teaching to cover the gaps. Wrote every morning. Published Player Piano in 1952. Then Slaughterhouse-Five in 1969.
