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I have lived enough and most importantly dealt with enough people to know that the quality of our lives are a direct reflection of the CHOICES we make every single day; at times moment to moment.
You can be compassionate for the suffering of others and yet not feel the need to apologize for being a smart person who made good choices and have your life reflect those choices.
If luck is an issue, you've already had enough luck that by itself has put you in the top couple of percentiles. You could have been born on a pirogue floating in a sewage canal in Burma.
As if on que, a boomer regales us with a story of their lone struggle of personal greatness.
I know. And I'm an early boomer. On queue. Some forums here are full of people bragging about how well they did and that if someone else didn't do so great (in terms of money, of course) it's for not working hard enough, not saving enough, not being smart enough, not "making the right decisions." Brag brag brag. I guess it must make them feel better. Maybe money isn't everything after all since they still feel the need to brag.
There are many more people, boomers too, who didn't come out ahead of the game. Yet they went to college, worked hard, didn't spend much, drove an economy car, ate healthy foods (fill in all the blanks) and still something went wrong for them.
Bad things can happen to good people. Poor health or an accident can happen to anyone, so consider yourself lucky if it hasn't happened to you yet. In this country, poor health can ruin your life in terms of losing your money. And disability insurance isn't necessarily going to save you. What if you get sick in college and can never work? Or you get sick in your early twenties when you haven't been able to afford to buy disability insurance or you haven't found a good enough job that offers disability insurance? In this country you are screwed.
You rarely hear about the boomers who worked and sacrificed only to end up in dire straits due to some unexpected health issue. Or the boomer who had to quit working to care for an elderly parent or a disabled child. If you are part of a dual income couple and both are lucky enough to not suffer a serious illness or be in an accident, you certainly should do well money-wise. No excuse not to. That doesn't make you superior to others who worked hard and had bad luck in life.
Spot on. The way health care costs are going in this country, unless you are a multi-millionaire, a disease/condition/accident can completely wreck your finances. Some people have a general predisposition to certain diseases due to genetics. Or you can rack up high medical bills because of some random event that causes you or a family member an injury.
This. We still live decently but having one child who had cancer and another that has cerebral palsy, epilepsy and a rare visual impairment has taken a huge toll on our finances. It will play a decent sized role in our kids lives as they age as well. unless you've lived it, it's difficult to understand how much chronic medical issues can cost. And we have good insurance. It is what it is.
Health is a wildcard as well. You can eat healthy and exercise to try to get better outcomes but you can still be born to problems or have them develop outside of your control. You could have children that have medical bills their entire life.
Here we go again with the "health is a wildcard" comment. It really annoys me that so many people view anything that isn't a 100% iron clad guarantee as a "wildcard". Use of the term "Wildcard" strongly implies randomness, that one has no control or very little control over one's health. That's simply not true.
I'll concede that marriage is a little more dicey. But people who have successful marriages tend to share a similar set of traits in terms of attitudes and behavior. It's not a guarantee, but it's not a wildcard, either.
Pshaw. I'm just pointing out the idea that one's position in life is mostly the result of luck is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Worried about devastating diseases, like the OP? Call your insurance agent.
No, you can't guard against every eventuality, but you sure as heck can mitigate risk.
Agreed.
Just to add some support to that. What percentage of lottery jackpot winners are broke within 5 years?
A: About 70%. Interestingly, that's about the same percentage of Americans who live payday to payday or are going further in debt.
I think you mean "on cue". I often find sloppy spelling and sloppy thinking go together.
Yes, I spelled something wrong. One day I was thinking I was objective and somewhat intelligent, but then it all went away in a flash. I’m surprised you missed my other egregious spelling error of the word “different” because I typed from a phone.
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