Lately, I’ve been learning a lesson about money.

In my head, personal finance was like the yodeling mountain climber game in The Price is Right. You learn what you’re doing and just keep bopping along up the mountain. Sometimes you freeze where you are for a minute but then you keep going. …I suppose falling off the end is financial independence.

In reality, personal finance is more like a tango (in my head, it’s totally Gomez and Morticia Adams tearing up the rug). It’s not a clear uphill journey. Things are just all over the place.

When you’re having a good year, it’s easy to forget it’s really a tango, when you feel like the little yodeler, climbing up the hill all year. When things are going well, you just set your life on autopilot, applying the personal finance habits you’re comfortable with, and keep on keeping on.

But even then you’re really tangoing. Because there’s a passion and excitement to watching those numbers creep up.

The moment you know it’s a tango though is when everything goes to hell and you batten down the hatches and weather it. Personal finance boils down to passion in those moments. How badly do you want to keep everything together? It’s easy to throw in the towel when you’re hit by one expense after another, but to force yourself back into a stricter budget routine – to pick up hustles you’ve stopped – to get back on track.

Your easy mountain climb turns into a whirlwind of motion. You can wind up going in a lot of circles. And it can be exhausting, especially if you’ve danced this dance before – but that doesn’t make it any less beautiful.