Is it a good trade?

I enjoy re-reading Thoreau. Hope you enjoy the following:

"Earning money in order to enjoy questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it, reminds me of the Englishman who went to India to make a fortune first, in order that he might return to England and live the life of a poet. He should have gone up garret at once."

Henry David Thoreau, Walden and Other Writings