I don't think "and of course, I also have to pay the bills" is an instructive part of anyone's life mantra. "The bills" are whatever you decide they're going to be - there's a very low fixed cost to staying alive, what you decide you need beyond that is up to you.

I have no trouble paying the bills now, but I've gone through times working on a startup where I lived on less than $4 a day, for example, without any regrets. That's not my life now, but the point is my life's goal isn't to maintain the high standard of living I enjoy now, it's to build things, try to change the world, and be happy. Having a decent amount of money does help the third thing in that list, but not without the other two.

It's great that you are in this situation. When its only you, well it comes down to the lowest denominator for living costs.

I think there is a lot of people that didn't start young with the entrepreneurship bug and ended up married with kids. With these people, paying the bills has a direct and noticeable impact on their family. I would say there is a lot of people in this situation and the dynamics of going "all in" with their idea just doesn't work the same.

I don't think you would argue with what I am saying at all, but there are many people that have obligations to others and we are not all single and only responsible for ourselves.

Being in this situation myself, I look at it as a optimization problem. Given the constraints I have, how can I optimize my situation to be successful with a company.

I understand that, and I'm trying to be as general as possible: paying the bills isn't part of your world view, what "paying the bills mean" is shaped and reified BY your worldview and goals. That's all I'm saying: "that's great, but you still have to pay the bills" doesn't have anything to do with a mantra by which you live your life, it's something you fit around and is shaped by what is core to how you want to live.