Life’s a board game. What piece do you want to be?

Grow up to go to college. Go to college to get a good job. Get a good job to make money. Make money so you can buy a house. Buy a house so you can get married. Get married so you can have kids. Retire. Die.

We all know this template. We were taught to follow it from the start.

A representation of this very message might even be sitting in a dusty box in a closet at home. It’s right beside Sorry! and 100 cash-grabbing versions of Monopoly we own for some reason.

The Game of Life taught the cross-legged children on the living room floor playing it this golden rule:

Wealth is winning in America.

You win at The Game of Life, literally and figuratively, by amassing the most cash and this idea is only further reinforced in every step of adulthood following.

The board game and its concept have roots dating back several hundred years, borrowing features from games of multiple cultures and times, but the version many of us in America know today was created by Milton Bradley. It dates back to 1860 and was redesigned in 1960.

Weirdly enough, The Game of Life, originally known as The Checked Game of Life, was a game “intended to forcibly impress upon the minds of youth the great moral principles of virtue and vice” according to Bradley. Jill Lepore of The New Yorker observed of its centennial revamp, “the game [now] lacks any sense of life as a battle between vice and virtue. […] at Life’s Day of Reckoning, you count your cash, not your good deeds. And Life’s most important squares are its red-letter ‘PAY DAY!’s.”

A game originally created to teach children morality and demonstrate the consequences of chasing vice over virtue, however misguided, evolved into an American household staple of equating your wealth with your value as a human being.

It’s just a board game, but its message compounded with the influence of a thousand other voices told us the same thing:

Success is a number, and it’s in your bank account.

I remember senior year of high school carpooling with one of my best friends to first period.

Junior and senior year is a pummeling, ongoing interrogation of, “What are you doing after graduation? Where are you applying? How will you pay for it? What do you want to study? What do you want to be? Have you applied for FAFSA yet? How will you make it in life if you hesitate in answering any of these questions?”

Neverending. Counselors, teachers, staff, family, friends—all well meaning, but utterly annoying.

You turn 17, never having spent any significant time outside the bubble of your city, and you’re supposed to have your life neatly outlined, your financial aid in order, and your goals determined.

Why do we do this to people?

On this particular morning drive to school, I remember externally processing: “So we’re supposed to go to college, go into debt, get a job, have a family, retire, and die. Is that all there is? That’s it and any deviation from this timeline means you’re lost, you’re struggling, and you’re a failure?”

The promise was uttered throughout homes, classrooms, college prep groups, and in between the lines of The Game of Life’s instruction manual: If you only follow the fixed path we’ve mapped out for you, on this board and in this life, you’ll be fine. You’ll be well off. You’ll be happy. You’ll be fulfilled.

You’ll be well off = you’ll be rich.

You’ll be happy = you’ll be rich.

You’ll be fulfilled = you’ll be RICH.

Hoard cash and by the game’s end, you’ll be the winner.

I don’t have to tell you how much of a lie this is, but I have to be honest: Even in seeing through it, I’m still not sure how to survive and operate in a society where money does objectively make things easier.

When you’re not working overtime, you have a lot more energy to dedicate to things that are life back to you.

When you’re not behind on rent, the world is a little safer to navigate.

Obviously, there’s validity in the security. In the relief of financial worry, you’re entirely more capable of investing in what actually makes life meaningful: Relationships, experiences, travel, hobbies, and creative delights. These are represented as “Life Tiles” in The Game of Life which are, not surprisingly, converted to cash at the end.

But how much of capitalism’s game do I have to play?

How much of its rules do I need to follow to be a self-sufficient, financially independent adult without spiraling into its vortex?

Here’s the quickest, most routine thought that comes right after that:

Oh, boohoo. It’s not that dramatic. So you have to work just like 99% of the rest of the world? Be grateful. You’re not in a salt mine. You’re not a 6-year-old child living off 85 cents a day. You can wake up to your 9 to 5 remote job and clock in, return some emails, and clock out.

You’re asking for too much.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not afraid of hard work. I’m not under the illusion that I’ll ever be able to stop. I have no problem with it. What I am saying is I’m starting to ask more and more:

We’re all working hard, but unto what?

If it’s just to survive, okay, but is there a way to survive this life without sacrificing everything that makes life worth surviving for in the process?

The health of our bodies.

The peace of our minds.

The quality of our relationships.

The richness of our experiences.

Where on the board game of life do these reside, and why does it feel like I have mitigate financial risk in order seek them out?