Cancer
We tell ourselves stories in order to live. We interpret what we see, select the most workable of the multiple choices available to us, and when the story no longer works we have to renegotiate it.
Joan Didion
The money question that keeps returning is not actually about the money. It is about what the money represents in the story you tell yourself about what kind of person you are and what kind of life you deserve to live. You keep circling back to it because the numbers are easier to think about than the deeper question they point toward. Each time you revisit the calculation, you are really asking whether you trust yourself to make a choice that honors both your practical needs and the version of yourself you are still becoming. The question will keep returning until you answer what it is really asking.