Simone Seol

Outside of that + my company’s basic operating costs, I’m donating the rest of our profits.

Here’s why I’m making this decision.

For the second half of this year, I’ve been taking sabbatical. And I’ve had the opportunity to do nothing but to think deeply.

And one of the realizations I’ve arrived at is this: we can live in either one of two modes: what I call the “hungry ghost” mode, or in spiritual wholeness. 

Hungry ghost

“Hungry ghost” is a term that comes from Buddhism and Chinese folks religion.

The way I use this term colloquially, I am referring to a way of being that says: more, more, more, more. Never enough.

It is animated by an insatiable, ever-deepening gnawing existential void inside that nothing can fill. 

The void plays host to an endless array of addictions — to more work, more money, more “growth”, more popularity, more comfort, more convenience, more entertainment, more dopamine, more adrenaline, more power.

More more more more more.

And, paradoxically, even when you accumulate and hoard more and more, the void doesn’t actually get filled. It somehow gets deeper, darker, more terrifying.

So then the addiction becomes even more frenzied. So then you get even more addicted to the chase. Then the void grows even deeper. And so on it goes…

The void is the very engine of consumerism (and so much of “business growth”). 

The bigger the people’s void, the more they consume (and “work” a lot of the time), and the more alienated they grow from their own souls, and disconnected they become from everything life-giving, connective, and sacred. 

Hungry ghost syndrome is not new to humanity — insatiable greed has always existed — but it has been inflamed to grotesque proportions and normalized amongst the populace to a terrifying degree thanks to capitalism.

Spiritual wholeness

The alternative to “hungry ghost” syndrome is spiritual wholeness.

You can have one, or the other. But not both.  And there is nothing in between. No such thing as a middle ground. Pick one.

Spiritual wholeness is the opposite of the perpetual state of addiction that attempts to fill the void within. Consumerism, addiction, and alienation meet their end in spiritual wholeness. 

The critical ingredient to spiritual wholeness that indigenous wisdom traditions have known for all ages, all over the world, is right relationship. 

Right relationship with ourselves, our communities, with non-human living beings, with the Earth, and with unseen energies.

Right relationship with knowledge, money and material things (not “possessions,” since Buddhism teaches me that there is no such thing). 

Right relationship between two beings requires attention, respect, and balance.

And one thing I have come to reflect on deeply is that excess is antithetical to right relationship. 

• What is enough — the opposite of excess?

• What does it mean to steward (not “own”) enoughness?

Enoughness is not a fixed state. 

What is enough for a healthy person is not the same as what is enough for a sick person. What is enough for an infant is not the same as what is enoughs for a teenager, which is not the same as what is enough for an elderly person. What is enough in a state of crisis is not the same as what is enough in a state of calm. 

So it is a dynamic, moving idea. 

And yet… we must never cease asking, “what is a balance that constitutes enoughness? And how do we meet it wisely?”

Otherwise, we cease to be in right relationship. 

So, in 2025, I decided to enter into an experiment.

I call it an experiment, because everything is an experiment. 

We try things, we learn and grow from them, and we try things differently, better —  hopefully — based on the new knowledge we’ll glean. I don’t know what I’ll learn from this upcoming experiment that will make future experiments different. 

But for now, here is what I am committed to.

I am taking a fixed salary. 

It is a salary that will allow my family to live comfortably. 

Not extravagantly, but with all of our basic needs AND many comforts met, while allowing us to save some for our future, while also allowing us to exercise a bit of generosity in our private lives. 

(And no, I’m not sharing this number — on purpose. I have no problem sharing numbers. 

But I feel that, once the number is known, it becomes distracting. Some may think it’s too much, some may think it’s too little, and more importantly, it may, for many, unconsciously become a kind of cutoff line at which people are “allowed to” make similar decisions. And none of that is useful, because the number itself is not the point. 

The “enoughness” number will be different for everyone, and it will be different even for me at different stages of my life.)

My company also has ongoing expenses. My team members need to be paid, and there are tech expenses, taxes, etc. 

And if we have profits on top of that — and I’m honestly not sure how much of them we’ll have, given that I’m also intending to move at a much slower pace and making significant changes to my business, leaving behind many features that used to reliably bring in “big money” — I intend to donate them to nonprofit organizations that support decolonization and climate justice.

I thought long and hard about whether to talk about this publicly at all.

Because, at the end, I’m not doing this for anyone but for myself. (Remember the whole thing about spiritual health? It’s MY spiritual health I’m choosing.) 

But ultimately, I chose to speak about it publicly, because I don’t think I would’ve thought to move in this direction if it weren’t for indigenous, Confucian, Taoist and Buddhist teachers of mine who shared wisdom and stories of their own lives and lineages that exemplified what it means to live in right relationship, away from capitalism’s dictates.

And I think that matters — sharing of stories. If it could support and embolden at least one other person to move in similar directions, I would be very happy.

This is an uncertain and perilous time for many across the world.

The more of us there are who are connected to the health of our spirits, the better hope we have of creating a world that is safe for our descendants to inhabit.