John D. Spooner is an investment adviser, author and novelist. His most recent book is the Boston Globe No. 1 best-seller No One Ever Told Us That, a collection of letters with life lessons for his grandchildren. Here, he responds to queries from advice seekers of all ages. Send your conundrums to thedance@improper.com.

I’m focused on really getting ahead in my career. My girlfriend is not as ambitious, and I wonder if this will lead to problems in the future if we’re being pulled in different directions. Am I wrong to make work my priority? I can’t tell you how many couples I have known over the years that were in this quandary. Prior to the marriage, there were just too many parties and concerts, and too much windsurfing and sex, to ever seriously consider the compatibility of their career goals. Once you say the vows, and certainly if you have children, a lot of tumblers click into place, and attitudes about many things can change.

Most big problems in relationships revolve around money—or rather, the lack of it. But there are always trade-offs. If you really aim for success in a career, work can become all-consuming. One large investment bank used to tell new hires, “If you are serious about working for us, you will have no other life. Period. But if you make it here, you can probably retire by your late 40s and go off into the sunset.” Few relationships would survive that approach. I worked at one firm where almost every chief lieutenant high up the corporate food chain gave their love first to the CEO, not their families. Virtually all of them got divorced. Long-term relationships need a lot of compromise, acting, sense of humor, patience and luck. If there are warning bells ringing before you commit forever, they seldom quiet down as time goes on. They just get louder.

You should have an honest heart-to-heart with your girlfriend about this subject. If she eventually wants the big house in Wellesley, along with travel and the country club, there’s only one way to get it. And it’s by leaning on your career.

I get incessant phone calls from my alma mater, calling for a handout. I know for a fact that the college I attended has one of the largest endowments of any private institution in the world. My question is: Will my potential contributions make any difference in getting my children in when they are of college age? Get used to it. All of us are under siege almost daily from every private school we ever attended, by phone, snail mail and email. Every nonprofit institution we’ve visited or nonprofit board we’ve served on also hounds us. Then there are the hopefuls we’ve never supported and probably never will, who nonetheless chime in constantly. Have I mentioned crowdsourcing requests? Is there no peace?

Of course we want the best for our children, and we all would probably love it if they could get into the colleges we attended. Personally, I’d go to any lengths to help get my kids into certain colleges. But the reality of college admissions is that almost anything short of a six-figure gift is not going to push your Jane or Johnny over the finish line at Yale or Duke or Notre Dame. Contributions in the hundreds of dollars will get you a note of thanks but little else, other than more communication to up the ante. Perhaps you’d better just concentrate on getting your child to be the best fencer in New England. Or the first American to fly like Superman.

The realist in me knows that big money talks at all colleges. But at the “elite schools,” your children will need some specialty that separates them from all the other applicants. Otherwise, cough it up for the new gym or be prepared for rejection.

Would it be unseemly to ask for a modern working definition of “seemly”? Maybe you’d be kind enough to use it in a sentence? It appears the word has almost disappeared from contemporary conversation! Of course, one could argue the term “contemporary conversation,” too.  When I type “seemly” into my smartphone, the words army, Sealy, Seny and Sammy come up instead. Which brings me to my next question: What does “Seny” mean?!? Ahhh, “seemly.” I know a woman who uses the word with gusto. I see this woman leaving her house on Beacon Hill, headed for a concert at Symphony Hall on a Friday afternoon. She passes me on the street, stops briefly and says, “How seemly you appear, suit pressed, bow tie, a proper Beau Brummell.” Historically, women like this were not afraid of moving west in Conestoga wagons. Pioneers. Picture someone with high standards who’d hold your feet to various fires of good taste. I told her this and she just said, “Oh, you’re acting like a coxcomb.” Look it up. And never be afraid of using uncommon words as if you do it all the time.

“Seny,” by the way, is not a word according to Oxford. But it sounds as if you have the right approach to life. Sometimes it’s fun to be a little obscure. It keeps others off balance.

Why would famous, creative people like Robin Williams and Ernest Hemingway kill themselves? They had so much talent. Anything that seems exciting and glamorous from the outside seldom is if you’re immersed in it as a profession. Most of the professional writers I have known are tortured by depression, addiction and the curse of never truly getting what they think they deserve. Years ago, a quite famous actor told me, “You get the Academy Award one night, and you wake up the next day wondering, ‘Am I ever going to work again?’ ”

Because the creative life is so full of solitude, and loneliness as well, no one who is not immersed in this life—no matter how loving or sympathetic—can ever really understand. Who knows what daily demons faced Hemingway or Williams or so many others? Fighting the demons inside us is never easy, and sadly many creative people will never know the joys they give to all of us.