| > After that... if you still think money is everything, you have lost sight of the rest of your life. I think a large part of it is that I've spent the first 25 or so years of my life living hand to mouth. As such I'm probably never going to get used to the idea that you can ever have "enough" money. What if something happens? Is your stash really big enough to tie you over? What if it isn't? What if ... basically I think that once you're in a money-tight situation for a prolonged period, especially if it was when you were growing up, that leaves a mark that's never going to go away. As the anecdote attributed to different rich people says: "Yep, my son tips more than I do. He's the son of a millionaire, I'm the son of a <insert poor-ish profession>" Maybe I hit a double whammy as well. My girlfriend's parents emigrated to the US from a relatively well-off French background. It's not all roses of course, but to my understanding they were never broke broke. Her grandma, for instance, has an estate that's been in the family for 300 years. I emigrated to the US from a single-parent background in a postsocialist country. My maternal grandparents went bankrupt when my mum was 15 or so, my dad's grandparents died by the time he was 5. Great grandparents' assets were mostly wiped out during WW2 (partially effect of war, partially socialist redistribution of wealth). So really I have about 4 generations worth of baggage about "Fuck we're broke!". There's no way that doesn't have an effect on how I think. |