When your wants become your needs

What I learned living in 91 places in 365 days

I got coffee with a friend from business school recently, who is graciously letting me stay at his apartment for a few days while he’s on vacation (and I figure out if I move back to NYC). No need for the movers, though; I’ll be taking the subway. The totality of my possessions fit in a carry-on suitcase, a 40L backpack, and a guitar case.

I haven’t had a lease on an apartment since 2019. I moved to Berlin right after business school. My startup sent me all across Europe and on a long stint in the US. After a while, my partner and I devised a plan to quit our jobs and travel.

I turned 31 a couple of days ago. A year ago I was still living in Berlin, getting ready to leave Gorillas and start the first chapter in my life that didn’t revolve around work or school. Over the past year, I stayed in 91 different accommodations - ranging from spare bedrooms in Brooklyn to overnight buses in Peru to my parents’ basement. That’s an average of four nights per bed, for an entire year.

I could talk about this experience from a number of different angles, and I also don’t want to romanticize living light: I value the flexibility it affords, but giving up routine has its challenges. (The few mornings where I didn’t have access to coffee, for example, were particularly unpleasant).

I want to keep these posts concise, and so I’ll instead emphasize just one point. We typically believe happiness is some function of wants and haves: if we have enough to cover what we want, we’ll be happy. (Or maybe the converse is a more helpful framing: if we don’t get what we want, we’re generally unhappy about it).

But the other part of this equation receives less attention: rather than focusing on how much we have, we should focus on making our wants as close to our needs as possible. And unlike achieving more material success, this reframing doesn’t require relying on anything external. Real freedom is when your wants equal you needs — a concept, as I understand, that comes up in Buddhist teachings.

I’m nowhere close to this type of liberation, but my main takeaway from living so light for many years is how little I really need to be happy. It’s a freeing feeling, especially as I head down the uncertain path of entrepreneurship. I certainly hope to have financial success, but having a clear view on the downside case - maybe it won’t be as bad as it seems - has given me the conviction to take that risk.

Well, that, and an incredibly supportive partner. But that’s a post for another time.