In the first months of 2021, memestocks went mainstream. Some of my friends were all in - they were buying GameStop, AMC, Bed Bath & Beyond. They bought options and bragged about how much money they were making. A couple of years later, I haven’t heard them mention any of those words in months. There’s a not-so-thin-line separating skilled traders and degenerate gamblers - and my friends were clearly on the wrong side. I heard about their wins but never about their losses.

When my friends played at the Wall Street Bets casino, they didn’t know anything about options. They didn’t know the value of the underlying companies, they were buying out of FOMO. They didn’t care about the price they paid and they disregarded that options expire eventually.

In finance, a stock option gives you the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell a stock.

In life, money gives you optionality. You have the ability, but not the requirement, to take action.

Our default mindset is to accumulate optionality instead of figuring out what we actually want to do. I had a high-paying finance job for eighteen years. I could do anything (not everything!) I wanted. But I never did anything. Sure, I had jet lag inducing beach trips, got the requisite IG-worthy photos next to lions, and had Michelin-star dinners. But, in the end, it was more for the ‘gram than for me.