google “happiness relative wealth” and you’ll find lots of links to studies. You don’t need to be rich to be happy, you need to be doing better than those around you. You can protest all you want, about how you don’t care how you stack up next to your neighbor, but it’s pretty unlikely you’re being truthful with yourself. We’re hard-wired tobe this way, something about survival and brain stuff and reproduction. We compete locally. There probably are a few enlightened souls here and there who are truly above the fray, but the local realtors, attorneys, engineers? probably not…we all probably wan tto be doing at least as good as the mean, and preferably a lot better. And certainly better than the average slob in the area.
And yeah, if you could be the local village warlord in somalia, you’d probably be damned happy! But if you just showed up with a bunch of traveler’s checks? not so much….money being just shorthand for power in our local neck of the woods…[/quote]
You are absolutely right, scaredy.
It is all relative.
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sdr,
If you were in the bottom quartile, you would not be able to enjoy the lifestyle you enjoy. You’re thinking too locally for what scaredy is talking about. The people in your specific neighborhood ARE the top third. That’s why you don’t feel what scaredy is talking about.
If you were one of the poor families living in one of the more marginal neighborhoods in our local zips, you would not be able to enjoy golf or fine dining. You would not have the time to enjoy your family, either, because you would be working at some miserable job for less than $40K/year and having to put in lots of overtime just to make ends meet. Somehow, I don’t think you’d be nearly as happy in that situation.
