I read this on a site.
<em>I was wasting a lot of time looking up people who had ‘normal’ lives and comparing myself to them and seeing how I’ve ‘failed’.
it does have to do with what you mention: I am prone to comparing myself to others, the “normal” people who tickle my fancy because, as Sadie points out, they embody my insecurities and perceived failings. And so I project on my object of admiration, and it really is true that it is about the fantasy that you create in your head and it has nothing to do with who the other person really is.
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I’m obsessed with comparison. Relativity. Again it astonishes me. The average guy my age earns more than most and gets about $900 in his hand. Teachers and Cops are getting like $800 in their hand. How fucked is that. Even if they’re single: $200 on rent, $100 on your car, $200 on groceries and bills, $100 on entertainment, you gotta have $600 just to live a normal life, and what if you do have kids?
Clothes, Medicine, Holidays, nice things, it doesn’t really leave you with much more than $200 to stuff under your mattress even if you are a big shot young guy making 80k and thinks he has the life.
Even if you’re 40 and the heavyweight making $100-150k, that’s $1500-2000 in the hand, you’re supposed to be the big man, but on top of all those costs, it’ll cost and extra $400 p/week to look after your family. You’re easily left just putting away a few hundred on top of your mortgage, and where does that go if you’re to roll in a ride of suitable standard?
Well the point is, the dude builds wealth. After 10 years he’s got $100,000, after 20 years he’s got a house and $300,000, or maybe 2 houses, and every 10 years they double in value. so that’s how a 60 year old ends up rich in the end if the average dude making $60,000 can just put $200 away each week.
Well it’s just like my A+’s in school, if I’m at the end of the curve then I’m not missing out on anything anyone else does.
Oh yeah but maybe others have lived more, travelled more, experienced more, been more artistic, built more meaningful relationships. I just built a business.
So maybe enjoy your holiday, enjoy your harem of admirers, at least I don’t have to get up for work until lunctime and well, I work half as hard and make twice as much. Clever me.
But what did I just say:
And many days I see it. There’s nothing stopping me from getting in my beamer and living the life. Well except if I do spend the next 5 years wallowing because the days of being youg, stupid, of trying to be some producer guy seem to be over. Will I ever be that hot young DJ or writer or youtube guy or whatever with my smoking hot young girlfriend? Maybe not.
Or maybe I just have to work twice as hard. It’s probably true, and having money behind me will certainly help.
So I just did the easy part, really.
So what if I’m so clever I never take the opportunity to create a family that might compromise my freedom?
It might be a lonely road, and an unlikely one. I get richer, life gets easier, I mean that’s the point I see: in my 40’s, a millionaire with no real connections and no need for any more money.
You can always make friends, you can always make money, you can always make art, you can always make love.
But whats the point of a million dollars if every morning you wake up thinking of the girl you don’t have, the recognition you haven’t achieved, the chance you lost because you wasted it while yo were young?
What do you do with a million dollars? You buy a nice house, a nice car, buy nice things, travel the world, then what?
You see what I mean? Money isn’t really a means in itself to a better life.
But if I don’t ever have a family, if the line ends here, well it compounds the situation. Richer and lonelier.
That’s the purpose of being selfless. Put a little love in your heart. Haha.
If I’m lucky enough to meet a chick then sweet. If not, oh well, such is life. I’ll do my art, I’ll pay my hosting so that I’m alive through the art I did for 100 years or more. There we go.
Tomorrow is another day, a day where I can do as I please.
Hopelessness is in my head, not like when you’re stuck in a dead end job, have to give up what you love to support a family.
I think I’ve got to start living in the present a little bit more. It might have been youthful misadventures and wonder in the past, and hopes of a secure and salubrious future, but in that I lose the opportunity for secure adventures now.
Some mornings I get up and I don’t feel so hot, but in a lot of ways the hard work has been done. I’ve got this far.
So what about tomorrow? I might go to 7, go to the laundromat, try and get back to this video and song I’m working on, problemantech.
I’m in my “problem” period
