On Salaries, Stability, and the Ones Who Still Sense More
A gentle signal to those who crave stability yet outgrow the life built around it.
There’s a line by
that has stayed with me:“The most dangerous things are heroin and a monthly salary.”
I don’t read it as a dismissal of stability.
In fact, I value stability. I crave predictability. I love calendars, structure, and the quiet order they bring to a chaotic world. This is not an argument against any of that.
What I hear in Naval’s sentence is something more subtle:
the recognition that stability, when internalized too deeply, can become a kind of gravitational field.
Some of us feel that pull more intensely than others.
It’s not that monthly income is harmful.
It’s that, for certain people, it can slowly reshape who they allow themselves to become.
The truth is: many people genuinely thrive within the rhythms of a structured, salaried life, and there is nothing wrong with that. Some of the most grounded, reliable, and meaningful contributions in society come from those who choose that path with intention.
But there is another group, a smaller one, who feel something else stirring beneath the surface. A kind of restlessness. A faint signal. A sense that what they’re doing is safe, but not theirs.
These are the people I’m speaking to.
Not to convince them of anything,
but to acknowledge them.
Because for this group, the salary isn’t the problem, the dependence is.
The predictability they appreciate becomes the very thing that holds them back from what they quietly know they’re meant to explore.
And here’s the hard truth:
Most people will never step outside that gravitational field.
Not because they don’t want to, but because the collective script of “stay where it’s safe” is too loud, too rational, too socially rewarded.
So I’m writing for the others
the ones who feel the pull yet can’t name it,
the ones who sense they’re drifting away from what they once imagined for themselves,
the ones who know they could build something but don’t yet know how.
Maybe we can recognize each other in these words.
Maybe we can help one another break the pattern,
not recklessly, not abruptly,
but consciously.
Not to reject stability,
but to stop mistaking it for destiny.
If you’re one of those people, consider this an invitation, or maybe just a quiet signal, that you’re not alone. And perhaps, together, we can create the kind of support network that makes stepping forward a little less lonely.