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When I moved across country ten years ago, to a place where I had no connections and no job, when I had student loan payments coming up and no significant savings, there were absolutely no guarantees that I'd succeed. But I was 23 and had the mentality that I had absolutely nothing to lose. Call it headstrong or drive or whatever. I had it. It was a high risk, high reward move, and it worked out well for me, mostly due to having faith in myself and the will to not fail without giving it my all. And also, having the aptitude to figure it out on my own was a big help.
A lot of older people here would call what I did 'stupid'. Hell, I'd call it stupid myself. Not everyone can just do what I did. It takes a kind of ignorance (towards risk aversion) and having no strings attached. It was also much cheaper to live here in Denver 10 years ago. There's no way I could do what I did now, without having a couple roommates at least. And if you really put a lot of thought into the planning of it all, that alone would probably scare you out of the idea. I didn't do any of that though. I was a dumb, risk-taking 20-something that said "**** it, we're doing it live!" and left on my journey...just. like. that. Nothing but a car full of clothes and a dream to do something different.
This sounds very similar to many of my experiences. I first moved out of my state of origin for graduate school. I was 22 years-old. I left a good job, then got out-of-state and promptly quit grad school. I was unemployed with no connections and no obvious or easy path forward, other than to return. I refused.
I had been so unhappy in my life before that I honestly told myself I'd be better off living in some random person's attic than going back to the life others had planned for me (in fact I actually came frighteningly close to being on the streets altogether). But I had resolved to make, at minimum, one belligerent effort to forge a new path, to live the life I would have lived had I not been pre-conditioned for 20-plus years by the biases of so many others. I wanted to live the life that would be created by no one's biases but my own. I was young and had limited responsibilities. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be irresponsible and to fail, but still have time to learn, to recover, and to grow to unprecedented heights on the back-end of the struggle.
That one "short-sighted" decision took me about 8 years and several more moves to fully recover from. Then I promptly did it again! Took a calculated risk to make yet another long-distance move without any offers of employment, without any connections, and with significantly more responsibilities than I had had when I was 22. And yes, I did have people call me "stupid" to my face for that one.
What can I say? I had moved up from a failing life to a C+ life. But my long-term plan had always been to earn an A+ life or die trying.
I don't know that my life is a perfect success right now. I'm not sure how to judge that. I'm extremely happy though. More importantly I'm living the life I chose. I'm a former "have-not" turned "have".
G-d has blessed me not only with ability, but with healthy amounts of well-channeled desperation and rage. I will not accept being condescended to. I openly defy all the "haves" who dared to discard me as a merely generic "have-not". I was a "have" mentally long before it came to any sort of material fruition.
In my experience here, I've picked up a general vibe among a strong, yet minority (?) contingency of posters. Whether it's the Work & Employment sub, the Relationship sub, or the Real Estate sub, there seems to be a disdain by some towards those who are perceived as "have nots". By have nots, I mean someone who is not necessarily on the controlling end of a situation. The "single guy or gal" as opposed to the couple, the "employee" as opposed to the employer, the "home buyer" as opposed to the home seller, or the "renter" as opposed to the owner. I tend to see people gang up and lash out at these types of people, often times describing them as having low worth, highly replaceable, and possessing inferior opinions on certain matters because they have not "succeeded" in certain areas of their lives.
Do you agree? If so, do you think there is some sort of perceived "successful person" group think attributing to this behavior? I notice that some of the more pointed or controversial discussions tend to devolve as a result of it turning into an "us vs. them" debate.
That is really sad to hear. What happened to people's compassion for others?
That is really sad to hear. What happened to people's compassion for others?
As a (mostly) "have", I do have compassion for those who are the victims of bad luck, but not for those who make obviously bad choices (doing illegal drugs, committing crimes, dropping out of high school, etc.) AND THEN expect others to bail them out.
If someone makes bad decisions -- and I think that most of us have! -- and then makes the necessary corrections (for example, by modifying their lifestyle, if necessary), then fine -- I do have respect for those people. However, toward those who make bad decisions and then continue making bad choices and/or blame other people for their mistakes -- well, no, I don't feel much compassion for them.
As a (mostly) "have", I do have compassion for those who are the victims of bad luck, but not for those who make obviously bad choices (doing illegal drugs, committing crimes, dropping out of high school, etc.) AND THEN expect others to bail them out.
If someone makes bad decisions -- and I think that most of us have! -- and then makes the necessary corrections (for example, by modifying their lifestyle, if necessary), then fine -- I do have respect for those people. However, toward those who make bad decisions and then continue making bad choices and/or blame other people for their mistakes -- well, no, I don't feel much compassion for them.
I am glad that you know the difference. There are those who lump all "have nots" in the same category and that is the problem.
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