People with plenty of money have crummy luck all the time, too, but it’s just an inconvenience for them. My parents are millionaires. Last week their heater, car, and garage door broke. So what?
If they were poorer, each problem would’ve caused two more problems. People living on the edge are vulnerable to every mishap in a way that is catastrophic. It’s very hard to break the cycle. You need a string of good luck that lasts for years.
By the way, I’ve always tried to live within my means and got hit with the housing crisis in a perfect storm that reduced me to zero. So I’m not saying here that poorer people are doing something wrong; it’s just about having more than enough money to be able to recover.The first time I ever had serious computer problems was terrifying. I was in university, I needed the computer for work and play and social life, and I couldn't possibly afford a new one. Fortunately, Dell's warranty support saved my ass, but the prospect of being computer-less was terrifying.
I'm having computer problems again (I'll blog about them more fully once they're resolved) and they're now far less terrifying. Even if I can't coax the desired behaviour out of my computer, I have my work computer, I have my old computer (which doesn't work super well, but can still do safe mode with networking), and I have my wifi-capable ipod and an open wifi network in my building's lobby (plus one in my very own apartment as long as I can keep my personal computer alive for long enough to turn on the wifi on my router). I can research my problem, I can access my comforts and my friends, and, if absolutely necessary, I can swallow the cost of a new computer that will meet my needs for at least a year. So what was an ordeal when I was in university is, at best, an item on my to-do list. Surely a huge step towards happiness!
4 comments:
I'm finally getting my "money buying happiness" post together. It was inspired by your posts, so expect linkage. I notice it's not a category, so if there's a post you'd rather I link to, let me know.
Now there's a category! My tragic downfall as a blogger is that it never occurs to me to make new categories for things.
I've largely given up on tags, categories, etc.
This lack of resilience at the bottom of the food chain of which you speak also has implications for the risk/reward paradigm which so many preach and preach about, say, as a justification of why employers, as "buyers of risk" should be appreciated rather than rebelled against. It seems that the Invisible Hand doles out rewards in proportion to the amount risked, not the amount of personal danger confronted by the risk-taker, which is very substantial when risking one's "bottom dollar."
Great, I will edit the link so it goes to the category.
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