How you see life depends on how much money you’re seeing it with
by Jennifer Kesler
I was talking to some friends the other day when one asked me if I’d ever been to Las Vegas. I told them no, that it wasn’t really my kind of place. They were amazed; how could anyone not love Vegas? It’s not just for gambling – it has fabulous restaurants and amazing hotels, too!
“Which I’ve never been in a position to afford, quite frankly,” I replied. “If I had thousands to spend on a few days of my life I’ll never get back, I might feel differently, but that’s never been the case.”
I’m lucky to have friends who take a comment like that in stride without feeling attacked or like they need to make me feel better. They understood it was just a statement of fact: to enjoy a place, I need enough money to see it in style. Otherwise I’ll just feel I’ve wasted my money. And to me, that’s not just an irritating feeling: it’s one that, until recently, often made me feel physically ill with remorse.
This got me thinking: all the places I’ve lived in or visited that I didn’t enjoy, I was seeing from a perspective of little or no financial security. Situations vary greatly depending on your vantage point, so who knows what I’d think of the places I’ve lived and been if I had the money to enjoy them more. Certain things don’t change – like air quality – but such simple things as having free hours during the “working day” to run errands can make a small but significant impact on your quality of life. For example, I liked L.A. better when I was in college, had a more flexible schedule and felt somewhat financially secure because I (naively) believed me college loans would pay themselves off with a good salary. For another example, L.A. is very difficult to navigate without a car because they have something against providing public transportation (read: it’s an oil town); if I had to do without a car, as many Los Angeloonies do, I’d hate it even more.
But the other thing is, the middle class or financially secure people who have surrounded me all my life tend to think I’m impossibly dull because I can’t rattle off a list of things I like to do (that all cost money). Everything I wanted to do as a child cost too much money. If I wanted music or dance lessons, I could feel the tension as my mom tried not to make the “Oh my god how much will that cost” face, and eventually I just started denying I wanted lessons. Ditto on band instruments. Ditto on all sorts of things. We took four vacations during my childhood. By the time we had a little money in my latter teens, I was so used to this way of thinking I couldn’t change. Instead of wanting something and hunting for the funds, I’d just convince myself it wasn’t worth the price.
Just as well: once I got out on my own, much frugality was called for. Frugality that causes most of my middle class friends to gasp and wonder how I could live without that. For fuck’s sake, people: you do what you have to do. It is a luxury to imagine you couldn’t cope with a situation millions of people clearly cope with every day.
I don’t resent the middle class for having more. I do sometimes resent those of them who judge me by their own standards because they actually imagine themselves the least fortunate person they know (I actually find upper class people are much more likely to be understanding – they know a lot of people don’t have what they have). And sometimes I resent the world because, really, anyone who works as hard as I do and spends as frugally should be able to buy a house and have some job mobility. There’s no excuse in a country as fortunate as the US for full-time jobs not paying enough for you to buy your way out of the indentured servitude of rent and save your way into some financial security.
But you know what? I do have passions. I won’t know if I enjoy travel until I’m able to try it in style without feeling nauseated by finance-panic (you either know what I mean by that phrase, or you don’t). My passions are that I want to become truly financially independent of the world, as much as possible – that’ll make me feel secure. I want to run my own business, grow my own food, live off the grid. The amount of money this will take won’t sound high class to anybody, but it will be living richly to me. I will feel secure and like I have a plenty of options, and that is what being “wealthy” really is.
But I want to make more money than that, too. Because I’d like to change the world at least a little, and no one ever did that without either money or violence. I’m going to guess you’d prefer I go the money route, right? 
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Posted in Class on August 12, 2008
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Ghandi changed the world without either money or violence. What you really need to change the world are people. Ghandi spent his time out in the fields talking to people when his colleagues created an organization that spent a lot of time talking about how terribly the British were treating them and that ultimately made no difference whatsoever.
So your impact by writing this is much more significant, I think, than you give it credit for.
Yes, but even Ghandi’s travels and education cost money. Had he been stuck working 18 hours a day just to survive and provide for a family dependent on him, he couldn’t have had the same impact.
Right now, my message here is reaching about 600 people a month. With more money, there’s a lot more I could do to get my ideas – and those of other bloggers with wonderful insights and suggestions – into the public arena where they would become viable options for societies to choose instead of niche programming for a niche audience. We could make movies that tackle these themes (or simply fail to pander to the usual stereotypes), run people for office, etc.
I’m in Warsaw atm (sorry, did this to you last time, threw in my experience of a foreign country after you’ve made a very valid point about not being able to travel :8) and one of the things that has struck me is the resentment of a lot of Poles that since Poland has become part of the EU so many people have gone to the UK to work (they think I’m English which may explain the resentment) because even paying London prices, you can afford a better quality of life for working less hours in a similar job. We worked out roughly the ‘middle class’ salary is about $A7500. Annually.
The general gripe: they go to England because they don’t want to work 2 jobs. Um, why would you want to work 2 jobs if you can earn the same, or more, in one, and get to see another country in the bargain?
I have no idea where this mentality comes from. But I’m begining to appreciate now why there’s alledgedly a lot of resentment of Western tourists in Poland.
I was writing a lot of personal stuff in my attempts to comment, so I deleted the entire thing.
Basically, I very much understand and thank you dearly for your post. No one’s ever told me so simply why I felt three times poorer than my family actually is when I was at my old (tiny, private, all-girls, UES of Manhattan) school.
I haven’t travelled in a long time, but when I did, I stayed in hostels, which are more fun, and took the Greyhound, which is also an adventure (although someone told me that American bus stations are perhaps a bit too much adventure). Anyway, you can do it for cheaper than you think. I miss that. At less than $12,000/year, I don’t even have that much any more. But I do get lots of free wilderness hiking in, since I have a bus pass and the wilderness is right there in my town.
It is hard, though, when you can’t afford to go to a movie with people, let alone get something to eat afterwards. That’s always been a struggle for me, even in grad school. And then sometimes they offer to treat, which is just as bad.
Anemone, I wasn’t asking for cheap travel alternatives. My point was that my friends, being middle class, immediately assume my objection to Las Vegas is a lack of interest in gambling and ignorance of all the other (fabulously expensive) stuff one can do there. It never occurred to them that I couldn’t afford to stay at the places they stayed at there, or go have dinner with world famous chefs like they do.
And, as I said, “to enjoy a place, I need enough money to see it in style.” Not all of us enjoy hostels and Greyhounds, and the reason for that isn’t necessarily misguided snobbery. My idea of a vacation is to get the fuck AWAY from people for a few days. I’m one of those people who needs a lot of personal space just to be remotely content. Being crammed in with other people shoots my nerves completely to hell, and that’s not much of a vacation.
I think I was just reminiscing, really. I have a tendency to automatically insert-positive-thought, even if it’s going off on a tangent, whenever anyone reminds me of feeling powerless. It’s how I keep it together.
Ok, I’m angry. I’m on welfare and can’t imagine living in the luxury you’re living in compared to me.
“And sometimes I resent the world because, really, anyone who works as hard as I do and spends as frugally should be able to buy a house and have some job mobility. There’s no excuse in a country as fortunate as the US for full-time jobs not paying enough for you to buy your way out of the indentured servitude of rent and save your way into some financial security.”
I completely understand this sentiment. Unfortunately the only way for all North Americans to be as rich as the ones we see on TV is for the rest of the world to be our working class for us. You can always go build a cabin in the woods, if you can afford the land. Plywood and 2x4s don’t cost that much, though getting on the grid is more expensive. But living in a city is expensive. Land is expense. And most people need to live in cities, because that’s where the work is. Many people will be renters their entire lives, and some of them might actually prefer it that way. There shouldn’t be anything wrong with any of that.
I get so tired of people thinking I don’t get what they say. I live in crushing poverty. If I were to lose the apartment I am lucky enough to afford, I would probably have to move out of town, perhaps to some shack in the woods, with the money legislation allows me to live on.
You and your friends, at least, have the privilege of being allowed to participate in society.
I try to hard to be polite on other people’s forums, and I keep wearing out my welcome. Because I’m less privileged, and people don’t want to know? Because I see or think things other people don’t want to know about? Because the things I say perhaps mean something different to me than to people in other situations? Sometimes just because I’m from a different country, and I read different media. This has been going on for so many years for me. It’s certainly not just here and Hathor. I have to bite my tongue constantly or feel unwelcome. Not much of a choice.
And if you think I’m misreading what you say to me, consider the possibility that what you say might have a different meaning in my less-privileged life than in yours. If it does. After all, if what I say doesn’t make sense to you, you could always ask questions.
I’m on welfare and can’t imagine living in the luxury you’re living in compared to me.
…and there are people on the planet to whom your lifestyle would be luxury. Comparing suffering (the “suffering Olympics”) is generally a silencing technique in online arguments, and I think that’s what you’re doing here. The problem is, I can trot out examples of people dying in famine-torn countries, and then someone else brings up genocidal wars, and we never get anywhere. Additionally, just because there’s always a Worse Problem someone could be having does not mean it’s wrong to discuss a particular problem.
Unfortunately the only way for all North Americans to be as rich as the ones we see on TV is for the rest of the world to be our working class for us.
I disagree. I think there’s enough to go around for all of the planet’s inhabitants to live in modest comfort. I wasn’t thinking only of myself when I stated that anyone who contributes to society and doesn’t waste resources should be able to enjoy that modest comfort.
You and your friends, at least, have the privilege of being allowed to participate in society.
I don’t have any idea what you mean by “participate in society”. If you care to define your terms, I’ll see if I have a response.
Because I’m less privileged, and people don’t want to know?
Maybe it’s because you ASSUME you’re the least privileged person everywhere you go, and thereby offend other people who may actually be less privileged than you, or are at least aware that we mustn’t assume everyone we encounter had is easy compared to us? And yes, I do remember the details you’ve shared of your life, and they are heartbreaking. But while you are absolutely right to speak up, perhaps you need to keep in mind that you do not know the background of every commenter on Hathor or this site. What if one of them shared a story that was even worse than your own? Would that make you slink off in shame and never complain again? I hope not, because every wrong should be railed against at the tops of our lungs.
Because I see or think things other people don’t want to know about?
And you think you have a monopoly on that? I see you didn’t make it back to this post.
It’s certainly not just here and Hathor. I have to bite my tongue constantly or feel unwelcome. Not much of a choice.
If it’s not just here and Hathor – if the common denominator is you – perhaps you should consider that your communication skills need some work. You state opinions as fact; when we invite you into debate, you simply scoff at us for not agreeing with your educated opinion and then imply that we’re all mean, ignorant buffoons out to hurt your feelings. Either you are so brilliant and we are all so beneath you that you really ARE just wasting your time trying to converse with us fools, or you need to consider the possibility you treat people unfairly.
After all, if what I say doesn’t make sense to you, you could always ask questions.
On Hathor, I asked you about half a dozen questions, and your only response was that you had gotten your opinion was informed and you stood by it. Kind of hard to have a discussion if one participant has no interest in explaining how she got to her conclusion.