I was shopping with my son for his birthday this past week. We had just left the Aquarium and were walking along Cannery Row, moving in and out of the tourist shops, candy stores, and restaurants that line the street. He had cash in his pocket, and it was burning a sizable hole.

There were plenty of things that caught his attention. A medieval club. A samurai sword. A Viking goblet. I began to get whiplash with all of the options that we were presented with.

“Mom, can I get this?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because you already have a katana. And what are you going to do with a golden goblet?”

I was mentally cataloging all of these things alongside the other things he once desperately wanted, most of which were now sitting on a shelf in his room.

I suggested we look for something he would actually find useful.

“You kept asking for new shoes, more t-shirts, and a club jacket a month ago. What about those?”

He wasn’t particularly interested in my practicality.

Then he brought up the Nike Air Force Ones that he had shown me last week.

I reminded him that he had just grown four inches in two months and would probably outgrow them before Christmas. Then there was the price. I couldn’t understand why a thirteen-year-old needed sneakers that cost that much.

“None of your friends are going to like you more because you have those shoes,” I told him.

He seemed a little deflated.

A few days earlier, we had taken him and a friend to a theme park. His friend pulled out a pair of Meta Ray-Ban glasses. I was shocked when he told me what they cost. Even on sale, he said, they were around $400.

Later, I told my son that no matter how much money we had, I couldn’t imagine spending that on a pair of glasses for him. What would he actually need them for?

Of course, I recognize the hypocrisy in some of this.

When my son was younger, we bought him plenty of things he didn’t need. Toys he desperately wanted and barely touched a week later. Video games. More Fortnite skins than I care to admit, which may remain the most ridiculous use of actual money I can think of.

When he turned ten, we bought him an expensive gaming computer because he wanted to become a YouTuber. And I spent an embarrassing amount of time researching what kind of graphics card he would need to run Premiere Pro, After Effects, and OBS without the machine crashing. I knew enough about technology to know that buying something cheaper that couldn’t do what he wanted would be a different kind of waste.

He still uses that computer every day.

So perhaps price has less to do with value than I sometimes want it to.

I spent enough years working in technology to understand the seduction of the next thing. The industry is largely built on it. There is always another phone, another computer, another platform, another feature that promises to change the way we live or work. Last year’s innovation becomes this year’s limitation.

But it wasn’t only the technology.

There was a period when everyone seemed to be a “rockstar” or a “superstar.” I remember being called one at one point in my career—and I still cringe thinking back on that moment.

Companies called themselves families. We were told it didn’t matter where an idea came from as long as everyone had a hand in making it successful, while performance reviews and salaries still depended on proving our individual contribution.

There was a uniform, too. The right shoes. The expensive T-shirts. The cars. The neighborhoods. The restaurants. Walking through downtown Campbell or Mountain View, I could feel the industry changing around me. Somewhere along the way, it became difficult for me to distinguish innovation from the performance of being innovative.

I remember thinking that once I made six figures, everything would change.

It didn’t.

Our lives just became more expensive.

This is the part that makes conversations about money and enough more complicated than I sometimes want them to be. It is easy to look at someone else's life and decide which expenses aren't necessary, but lives are built around what we earn. Mortgages are real. Children are expensive. So is California. Families make decisions based on the resources they have, and eventually what once felt like an extraordinary amount of money can become the amount required to maintain an ordinary life.

I know people who have become extraordinarily successful and discovered that their success itself has become difficult to leave. They may know something needs to change, but changing it could mean giving up far more than a title. A salary supports a home, children, a spouse, schools, commitments, and expectations that accumulated slowly enough to feel reasonable as they were being made.

It becomes difficult to know which things are extravagant and which things are simply the life you are now responsible for.

I understand that more than I want to pretend I don’t.

There were real sacrifices involved when my own life changed. Things we stopped paying for. Things we do differently now. Choices that were available to our family that may not be available—or desirable—for someone else. There are also professional doors I know I cannot simply walk back through as though the years between never happened.

I don’t think any of this means ambition is wrong. I don’t think expensive things are inherently wasteful, or that earning less makes someone more virtuous. I like beautiful things. I appreciate quality. And I’m not particularly interested in deciding how someone else should spend their money.

Just yesterday, my son and I were walking around looking at some of the cars that were in town for auction during Concours d’Elegance. We live here, so one of the more peculiar things about this week every year is watching people fly in from all over the world for something happening in our backyard. We happened to be on our way to the doctor on a regular Thursday.

My son was wearing his new Vans and a Shelby hoodie, completely absorbed in the cars around him. Some were the kinds of cars most people will go their entire lives without seeing in person, much less owning. And as we walked around, I realized I didn’t feel particularly impressed by the wealth around me. I didn’t resent it either.

I just liked watching my son look at the cars.

I’ve occupied different positions around this world before. Long before I became an engineer, I worked events during Concours. My husband bartended them. I’ve waited on celebrities and catered events attended by people whose wealth I couldn’t begin to comprehend. Now I live here, and sometimes I’m simply the mom walking through with her thirteen-year-old on the way to an appointment.

At one of the vendor booths, someone noticed how interested my son was and asked if he wanted to spin a wheel they had set up. He won a swag bag. We obviously weren’t the ideal customers for whatever they were selling, but it didn’t seem to matter. He was a kid who loved the cars, and someone noticed.

Maybe there is a freedom in being able to appreciate something without needing to possess it. To recognize craftsmanship, beauty, extravagance, even wealth, without requiring any of it to tell us where we belong.

A woman I know moved to Portugal a couple of years ago. During a recent conversation, she said something that stayed with me. People there seemed to have a different currency by which they valued their lives.

I knew what she meant, even if neither of us could fully explain it.

There are so many currencies by which I have measured mine.

Money was one. Achievement was another. Being good at what I did. Being needed. Staying relevant. Knowing what was happening before everyone else did.

Maybe that is why relevance has begun to interest me so much. There is nothing wrong with wanting to remain useful or informed. But I wonder what happens when we need the things around us to keep confirming that we still matter.

The newest technology. The right title. The salary. The shoes.

Whatever happens to be carrying the message at the time.

After Cannery Row, I suggested that my son and I stop at a local surf shop I used to frequent in my teens and twenties. He wasn’t thrilled about it, but I convinced him to look.

Almost immediately, he found a pair of black and white Vans.

“These are cool.”

Then he looked at the price.

“They’re too expensive.”

I pointed to the pink sale tag on the outside of the box. The shoes had originally been $90. They were marked down to $45.

His eyes lit up.

“That’s half off!”

They were a size nine. He usually wears a ten, so I told him to ask the woman working there if they had another size. He wanted me to do it for him.

“You’re thirteen,” I reminded him. “They’re your shoes.”

She checked the back and told him that was the only pair. I suggested he try them anyway. Different brands fit differently. Who knew.

He sat down on the bench along the wall and then looked up.

“Mom, look.”

There were two more boxes sitting nearby. A ten and a ten-and-a-half.

He tried them on.

We left the store with a pair of shoes and a T-shirt, and he still had some of his birthday money left.

The shoes weren't worth less because they cost $45 instead of $90. They weren't less useful because another season had come along. He liked them before he knew what they cost, decided they were too expensive when he saw the first price, and became even more delighted when he realized his money could stretch further than he thought.

He hasn’t mentioned the Air Force Ones since.

I’m writing this now from a very different place than the one where I spent much of my career. I can hear birds overhead. My chickens are making noise outside. Every so often, deer wander past my window.

None of this means I have figured out what enough is.

If anything, I have become more aware of how easily the definition changes.

There will always be another threshold. Another thing to acquire. Another level to reach. Another version of ourselves we imagine we might finally become if we could just get there.

And some of those things may genuinely be worth pursuing. Some may be responsibilities we cannot simply abandon. Some may allow us to serve people better, make beautiful things, provide for our families, or do work that matters.

Maybe the question isn’t whether we should want more.

Maybe it is whether we know what the more is for.

I think about that as my son gets older. I can tell him that a pair of shoes won’t make his friends like him more. I can refuse to buy the $400 glasses. I can make him ask the woman at the surf shop for his own shoe size and let him discover what it feels like to spend money he can actually see disappearing from his hand.

But I can’t decide for him what enough will mean.

Eventually, he will have to learn what is worth wanting, what is worth paying for, and what is worth giving something up to have. Not just with his money.

With his life.

I suppose all I can do is help him pay attention to the difference.

And keep learning it myself.