On various metrics, there can be differences in quantity, e.g. “a job that pays $10k” vs “a job that pays $20k”, and differences in quality, e.g. “a job” vs “early retirement”. Merely improving quantity does not make a good story. And perhaps it is foolish, but I imagine “winning” as a qualitative improvement, instead of merely 30% or 300% more of something.
And maybe this is wrong, because a qualitative improvement brings qualitative improvements as a side effect. A change from “$X income” to $Y income” can also mean a change from “worrying about survival” to “not worrying about survival”, a change from “cannot afford X” to “bought the X”, or even a change from “the future is dark” to “I am going to retire early in 10 years, but as of today, I am not there yet”. Maybe we insufficiently emphasize these qualitative changes, because… uhm, illusion of transparency?
Not the author, but my guess would be this:
On various metrics, there can be differences in quantity, e.g. “a job that pays $10k” vs “a job that pays $20k”, and differences in quality, e.g. “a job” vs “early retirement”. Merely improving quantity does not make a good story. And perhaps it is foolish, but I imagine “winning” as a qualitative improvement, instead of merely 30% or 300% more of something.
And maybe this is wrong, because a qualitative improvement brings qualitative improvements as a side effect. A change from “$X income” to $Y income” can also mean a change from “worrying about survival” to “not worrying about survival”, a change from “cannot afford X” to “bought the X”, or even a change from “the future is dark” to “I am going to retire early in 10 years, but as of today, I am not there yet”. Maybe we insufficiently emphasize these qualitative changes, because… uhm, illusion of transparency?