Three years ago, I made a difficult decision: I forgo an opportunity to gain $100,000. I let go of a job offer from Facebook, with a signing bonus of $100,000. If I would’ve worked there for the three years till now, taking into account the salary and stock, the amount of money lost is closer to $500,000.

It wasn’t an easy decision. My girlfriend at the time was so frustrated with my month-long decision-making stress that, one time, I got kicked out of home and sheltered from the snow in our basement, taking a work call from there. I don’t blame her; my stress at the time was difficult to be around.

Ultimately, I rejected the Facebook job and chose to work at a startup instead. My reasoning was this: I didn’t care about how much money I would make in the next year, two years, or five years. I wanted to optimize for the ten-year period, and maximize the learning and growth and opportunity for serendipity I would have.

Maybe the startup would be successful. Maybe I would meet my next cofounder there. Maybe I would discover new passions. Maybe I would make my closest friends. Whichever of these things happened, the surface area for magical serendipity felt higher here than at a stable, high-paying job.

Looking back, some of these things happened, and some didn’t. The startup did exit, but it wasn’t financially lucrative for me. I made close friends and special memories, but I didn’t find a cofounder. Most importantly, the startup founder became a mentor that inspires me and always has my back.

I didn’t want to join a startup again, but something within me was addicted to the thrill. So I joined another startup for a year after, this time much smaller, where I worked directly with the founder. This time felt even more magical, and I found another mentor that inspires me.

Eventually though, the time came for me to move on, and now I sit in my apartment writing this note. I have $500,000 less than I would have had if I made different life decisions. It’s easy to regret and reconsider: was this all actually worth it? What have I gained for all that I lost?

It’s hard to say for sure. I don’t know the counterfactual of where I would have been right now if I joined Facebook. And only three years have passed; my decision was meant to optimize for a ten-year horizon. Maybe I will become ten times richer in the next seven years.

Until last night, this subconscious worry ate away at my well-being. Unemployed and exploring startup ideas, I wish I had more of a safety net. I wish I had more runway. Money is a very real limiter to pursuing our passions, and I wish I had more freedom from it.

But last night, a friend that was over for dinner looked at my whiteboard full of ideation, and she said: “I’ve never considered doing what you’re doing now. It’s fascinating to see your process”. What she was referring to are the meetings I’ve been having with teachers from my network, trying to learn more about the pain points they run into during their job, to understand opportunities for impact within the education space. What she was also referring to was the vague, uncertain path that I’m on, of spending all day in my apartment reading and learning things, not ready to meet co-founders or investors yet, not willing to build something more tractable like a B2B SaaS startup, and not willing to take another job to save up money while I explore ideas.

For a second, I looked at myself through her eyes, and realized how crazy I looked. And I wondered to myself: “what am I doing? And how did I get here?”

What I realized is that this is all I know to do. For the past three years, my closest mentors have been people that had a vision for the world, wanted to bring it to life, and committed to spending the next ten years of their life working on that. Thomson wanted to make it easier for anyone to start a business, especially immigrants and the unbanked, and so we built banking services for small businesses, lending capital and providing a bank account. Aaron wanted to make biology more reproducible, accelerating science and drug discovery, so we built computer vision systems to automatically detect and monitor protocol workflows in a wet lab.

When we try to add something new to the world, especially at scale, we face a lot of resistance. Yet, they would show up every morning, and despite the ambiguity, would work on the next task that would inch them closer to their vision.

That energy is infectious, and by working closely with these mentors, it diffused into me. And now I sit in my apartment doing what they probably once did. Just like them, I have a vision. It hurts me to see talented children lose their confidence and curiosity in the assembly line of education; I want to make education a force of joy, inspiration, and empowerment. Education is a complex and difficult problem, but I’m motivated to solve it, so I wake up every day and search for a direction to pursue, for the next task that will inch me closer to my vision.

Is gaining delusional self-conviction worth the opportunity cost of $500,000? The jury will remain out on that for the next seven years. But the conversation last night dispelled my regret. I’m grateful to be exactly here at this moment in life. I feel so much agency over my life and submission to the natural order of the world at the same time, and I would not trade this feeling for any amount of money.

(would love to hear thoughts / feedback on twitter at @abi7ar)