I am unreasonably captive to my addiction to excessive comfort, exotic travel, expensive meals, beautiful views, and the spontaneous purchase of unnecessary objects. I also own more sneakers, t-shirts, ties, books, watches and socks than I’ll ever be able to use.

How much time and energy do I exert to finance this addiction?

Through my past obsession with work, 60, 80, 100 hours a week, working in a way that caused me to miss most sunsets and too many school plays, I achieved the reasonable wealth required to purchase too many unnecessary things. Though that was truly the goal, it seemed at the time, a pleasant by-product.

We live in a house that is bigger than we need and buy things we may never need. It feels like we should give away more money than we do. How do we reconcile the contribution we make to mitigate the world’s problems and the actions we take to aggravate those same problems?

What does it mean that I have the time and choice to focus on this problem, yet every day continue to make the problem worse?