I gave up a tenured professor position to move to another country for a year-to-year contract because I wanted the challenge and to experience as much out of life as I could. I ended up getting tenure in my job as well. Now I'm giving that up also (yikes!) in one month to start my own business – a math creativity center.

Is this good or evil? My jobs were already for the public good. I am focusing on "creating worthwhile and progressive things with the risk of less comfort", as you say, but I also want to make good money and live a comfortable life. The priority for me is doing the creative and worthwhile things first, as long I've got enough money to take care of my family!

I've often wondered if I'd gone the other way, gone into the private sector early, taken a high-paying programming job instead of going into teaching. Or if I focused my powers on increasing wealth where might I be today? I get the feeling I would have ended up doing something with the same flavor as what I'm doing now.

Hard to say? Do you focus on making money so you can be free to do what you actually want to do? Or do you just do what you actually want to do and let money take care of itself? There's risk either way. You could risk going broke and hungry if you follow your art, but for me the greater risk is never realizing your art because you kept waiting your life to be in the right place to make your dreams happen.