“It’s called the ‘American Dream,’ because you have to be asleep to believe it.”
—George Carlin
Growing up, we were what I call “American poor.” We had a warm house, I never went without a decent meal, I had clothes that fit me, and I got presents on Christmas.
But, we were financially insecure, my parents fought all the time about money, and I went without a lot and missed out on a lot. It was stressful in ways that a child should never have to feel stressed, and even though I was determined to get out of that situation and not have to live like that as an adult, I still mostly didn’t believe it would ever be much easier for me than that.
I made a series of choices in my life that weren’t necessarily what I would have chosen had I not grown up like that, but that’s what everyone does, for good or for bad. Our experiences shape us.
In the last couple of years or so, I’ve slowly started to realize that I’ve actually been in a pretty comfortable position for a while now, and I didn’t even know I was there because I was still so focused on being afraid of ending up like my parents.
Aaron and I both make pretty considerable salaries. We have health insurance. We own a home. We have some savings built up and we are putting money into our retirement accounts. We splurge on dining out from time to time, and we like to travel when we can. But we aren’t rich, we don’t drive fancy cars or wear fancy clothes, and we don’t live in a notable or upscale neighborhood. We don’t have kids, which definitely factors into things, but we’re okay.
I’m not talking about any of this to brag. And I understand that I’m still in a better position than most people, which makes me sad. That part of me that grew up without health insurance and was told not to get sick and to make sure I brush and floss every day because we couldn’t afford a doctor or dentist visit still worries that it could all turn back around for me, and I think about the people whose lives are like that, or worse, and it’s awful and I feel humble and thankful for what I have and so fucking lucky that I somehow managed to climb out of the hole a bit.
There’s always something that would be nice for Aaron and I to have, regardless of why, but when it really comes down to it, we’re just fine without pretty much everything we currently don’t have. I want to be secure and be able to take care of myself, and I also want to have fun and enjoy life, and it takes money to do that (anyone who tells you differently is naive or is lying). But I don’t need a better car, I don’t need a better house, and I don’t need fancier clothes. I don’t need a yacht or a private jet or a villa on 50 acres. Lately I’ve been looking at what we have and thinking about how we can maybe even work less or work differently, with the objective of keeping a balance to just maintain what we have right now. “More” is less and less important as time goes on. There’s only so much that we truly need, and the rest is just excess.
But if you had asked me even just a few years ago if I thought I ever would have felt this way, I would have said no, because I spent such a long time being afraid that I’d never reach a point where I felt secure or comfortable.
Here’s why I’m talking about this: The other day, a friend of mine made a post asking if one human should have $166.3 billion dollars. The responses were more depressing than a lot of things I’ve read lately (yes, despite what is currently going on), because they were coming from people who probably consider themselves to be fairly progressive. To sum it up, most people felt like if you earned it, you should have it, and if you work hard, you too can be a billionaire.
There is no possible or even conceivable way to “earn” $166 billion dollars. At a certain point, with even a fraction of that wealth, you are doing absolutely nothing to continue amassing it. You would never have to work another day in a thousand lifetimes, and neither would any of your family members for centuries of generations to come. Through interest alone, you are making millions of dollars per hour simply by letting it sit in the right accounts. Trying to understand just how much money that actually is and the power it has is like asking someone to entertain the idea of driving across the galaxy.
Republicans and conservatives are inextricably linked with the concepts of greed and selfishness, and for good reason. But it’s an understatement to say that a lot of people on “the left” have a problem with the way they think about money. And they do. And that’s because it’s an American problem. This is not to say that people living abroad can’t be just as greedy or selfish as we are, but it seems like Americans, as a whole, are in an unhealthy love affair with money wherein they throw all reason and sensibility right out the window. They could be living paycheck to paycheck, having to choose between paying the utilities bill or buying groceries, but if you asked them a question like this where they were able for even just a second to imagine themselves as the billionaire under trial, they’d give you the same ridiculous answers.
Everyone in this country wants to believe they can become a billionaire, and they’ve been tricked by people who want them to believe that. And it totally works. Looking around at everything that is happening right now, no matter what we do, we aren’t going to fix anything until people let go of these ideas of “hard work” making you any more entitled to things like health care and safe housing, and “earning” hundreds of billions of dollars. It’s really not just people on “the right” who think this, either. It’s a very significant number of Americans, who will only ever get about as close to being a billionaire as Neptune is to the sun.
I’m truly thankful for what I have, and as nice or as fun as it would be to maybe have some of those crazy luxurious things, my life isn’t lacking without them. It’s incredibly depressing to see people with less than me make excuses for and justify the behavior of people who have infinitely more than they ever will, because they follow what is basically a religion that tells them if they just keep grinding away and believing in themselves and “working hard,” they’ll get there too. They’re more upset over a hypothetical scenario in which someone accuses them of not “earning” their billions than they are over a system controlled by a small number of people that keeps them from even just having a few thousand in the bank.
—emily duchaine
Flommist Emily Duchaine lives in the Pacific Northwest. She likes to drink mead, learn about sharks, and listen to the Talking Heads. She pretends to be a professional businesswoman most days. Copyright © 2018 Emily Duchaine.
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