For the benefit of future readers with less context, you can model my move to Finland and Europe more generally to a first approximation as a trade. I gave up somewhere in the ballpark of $500,000 in expected post-tax income over the first ~5 years of my career by moving away from the US right after graduating from college. In exchange I married the love of my life a few years earlier than I would have otherwise, and we got our little family started a few years earlier too.

To me this was and is a fantastic way to spend $500,000. To most other people their heads would explode merely by realizing such a trade could be on the table, and so they never get serious enough about either money or love to face it head on.