It’s been bugging me, and now I need input. There’s no motivation at all to get well off past a certain point according to my motivation, and I’m already past that point.
Let me explain, giving as little of my personal details as possible. I come from a family of well off people. My dad’s dad drank away most of their money, but the next generation rebounded. So minimum third generation upper middle class. Both my parents have college degrees. I have spent less than 1% of my life living in rented accommodations. I have a house, two cars, and roughly 5 computers in various states of function (though we’re not going to get into micro controllers). I’ve never had a car payment, but have always had a car….
IDK how this all squares up with national wealth, but where I live I’m in the top 20% in pure assets, top 5% by age. When I left high school, my grandad bought me a car. Not a sports car or even a particularly expensive car as these things go, but he bought me a car. A few years later I cashed in all the savings bonds I’d ever been given and put a down payment on a house. All of that was 14 years ago.
So I’ve just been minding my business, in that time I finished my bachelor’s degree in psychology with a minor in computer science. Graduated into a pandemic, worked a little less than a year in social work before deciding I wanted no more of what that lifestyle had to offer.
Here’s the conflict; any more assets than I have right now, the student loan people can come for. I don’t have a ton of student loans, but the economy is giving me no indicator that I’ll ever pay them back by working for a living.
Here’s another conflict; I already inspire resentment in some of my peers for being as well off as I am. Mind, I haven’t done a damn thing to be as well off as I am. Just quiet living, having a major breakdown every 3-5 years.
I’m sick enough I think I could be disabled. I’m also sufficiently capable that I’m confident if I was motivated I could pull this thing together.
My question; where’s the motivation? Any additional money I earn doesn’t belong to me until I earn a lot of money, and it comes with resentment from the people I care about. Is this capitalism working as intended? Because I’m 35 and done with this economy. I don’t have children, mostly because I’m sick, but also because bringing a child into the world where I’m at may constitute child abuse.
I come around to all of this having spent the majority of my life trying to make it work. I sought out jobs, tried to appease my employers, and bettered myself both mentally and physically. Now I just look at the job listings and it’s all “Me me me, oh tell me I’m pretty then I’ll ignore you.”
You’d think I was talking about mean girls, but no, it’s employers with this attitude that it’s all about them. They have all the power in the relationship. I have read every employment contract I’ve been given, which may have been my mistake. Most of it requires that you submit to arbitration with an arbiter the company picks. It levies HEAVY liability on the employee, all the while not even requiring the employer to offer fair compensation for hours worked. Employee gets sick? Bye. Family emergency? Too bad! What little contractual obligations the employer has they manage to dodge. If THEY wreck their company (this has happened to me five times, and my dad at least ten), first ones out the door are the regular employees. The idiot executives get huge severance packages. They are heavily compensated to kill jobs.
Another issue; I like work, by itself. If no one is paying me to do stuff, I find stuff to do. I really like getting paid to solve someone else’s problems. It allows me to distance myself from my own petty desires. Now I realize, that may be something I have to give up.
I just…. want someone to explain to me how I’m supposed to ever trust an employer. Because it looks like at best entering into willing exploitation and abuse. I found a career path that I’m fully qualified for, that I can imagine being stimulated by. The catch? It requires more work to build a resume, work that is never compensated even at replacement value, and it requires me to talk to people like I want their money. I don’t. I want their problems, and for the world to leave me alone otherwise.
As it is, I’m waiting for my parents to die, awful as that is. When they do, I’ll be able to pay off my debt and go off grid sufficient to never need another company.
I’m a drag on them, and on their ability to save and retire…. but I don’t see my options here. They could facilitate my exit of the economy with the assets I’ve saved up, but they want me to try and make a life here, where they live. To be clear; I’ve tried, I’ve applied all of my assets both financially and mentally to this problem, and it doesn’t work without a sincere employer, which I’m convinced is mythical for people of my age.
Now it’s over I’m dead and I haven’t done anything that I want (now it’s over)
Or, I’m still alive and there’s nothing I want to do
6 comments
I have never worked for an employer that I trusted. But I worked anyway, because I needed the money to survive. Food, rent, etc.
There is only one employer anyone can trust without question–themselves. Maybe it would be a good idea to be self-employed. To start your own business. Just a thought.
It’s funny to me to see someone like you here. I often wish I had the kind of life growing up that you describe. Maybe my wishes are misplaced. I wish you well, to whatever end that entails.
Freelance. That’s what I do. I had to leave my jobs because of similar problem you describe. I don’t like working for system that’s unjust in many ways and has uneven/hierarchical power distribution. It’s one thing to have it elsewhere (and everywhere) but I can’t willingly and contractually participate in it. I think core issue is I don’t like being under another human being. Thankfully I found freelancing. It’s much more… free, as the word suggests. It doesn’t feel like a burden, doesn’t feel like a boundation. Whatever little interaction I have with different people is short and temporary. That works for me.
“I just…. want someone to explain to me how I’m supposed to ever trust an employer.”
You don’t. Most employers are shit. They are either miserable themselves or the company makes them squeeze you till you have nothing left.
That is probably a large part of the resentment from your peers. If they are really your friends and close family, then they shouldn’t resent you for the stuff that was handed to you (cars, bonds, living rent free etc). HOWEVER, it is understandable bc you do have the choice to NOT take any of these shitty soul-sucking jobs that spit you out as soon as they’ve extracted everything they can from you.
I grew up in poverty with NOTHING. And NO ONE giving me a damn thing. Everything I had I EARNED. Had to work at the ripe ol’ age of 7. I do not resent you as a person, especially if you seem like a good fella, however I do resent the fact that most people have just been handed everything or have had little to no adversity and have had cushy lives. And those people ESPECIALLY are the ones that are always spouting “pull yourself up by your bootstrap” or “think positive and everything will be fine!” nonsense.
Like for example, I do not resent any boomer individually for what they’ve done to us, the future generations, however I totally and completely resent that whole fucking generation, bc collectively, they’ve come together and screwed us out of a future. At least for the masses that have not been handed everything at birth.
Like for ex, if I meet Bob and Jane and they are nice people but happen to be boomers, I don’t hate them. And I’ve had some boomer friends I’ve talked to a bit in the past. But I DO hate the boomer generation, as a collective.
So it’s same for people like you who’ve been handed everything- if you’ve done nothing to me for me to dislike you, then you’re fine. Some people are good people or bad people, regardless of the money they have or don’t, or was handed down to them or not. However, as a class, I DO resent that I’ve had to struggle so much, literally my ENTIRE fucking life, and others have had it so easy.
I judge each person I meet or talk to individually. There are good and bad people in every category. If you were handed everything, doesn’t make you a bad person or warranted to be resented by others.
With that said, should close friends resent you? I’m not sure they should? Or is that like everyone? I’ve never resented any well off person individually that I’ve met, unless they did or said something that made me not like them for some reason.
It would have made a WORLD of a difference if I was handed a car, or had my education paid for, or was able to live rent-free during my 20s like SO many of my peers that I knew. THEY were all able to save up money, buy a house. Meanwhile, I was forced to rent as I had NO place to live. I was forced to join the military even, as a scrawny <100lb frail female, bc I had NO money. Life was so fucking hard. Every little thing I had to work for or fight for.
What most people don't realize (I'm sure you might as you seem intelligent) is that those who had no help, do NOT get the opportunities that those well off have. Not just opportunities but when you start off life in poverty, it is almost impossible to make it to the next class. And I'm sure you know this since you've worked as a social worker, and understand the real way the Economy works, that there is VERY LITTLE upward mobility when you grow up poor.
Everyone in America loves to spout the whole "work hard" and "pull yourself up by your bootstrap" crap, but since 1980, upward social mobility is improbable.
Well, kudos to you for doing social work in the past. You at least seem like a decent person, and someone who does understand his privilege (rather than the assholes who proclaim they have NO advantage being born white, male, born into a middle or upper middle class family). Anyone that denies that is super shitty and ignorant of the facts.
It’s no one’s fault, for being born into the financial status, that they’re in. There’s definitely the perk, of wanting to work for things, that always felt like an essential to part of life. Having things, also means having strings attached.
I grew up between being poor and middle-class, welp.. we had government support. That’s more I can say for most countries. And somehow I never developed needs, that I actually want to work for. So it feels without cause for me.
I’ve also had friends who lived in my flat, that are now dreaming big. Mostly community beneficial jobs, where they get robbed though. Either working with children or senior citizens. So I do think, that it matters, where someone comes from. My friends with nice places (mostly being an only-child) got very competitive jobs. They love going beyond the surviving part, and just having luxury from time to time. It’s also a make or break mindset to go through. Wouldn’t have been a life for me.
That’s an interesting college degree, you’ve picked and it makes me mad, that you, who worked hard for this, gets left with nothing. Not even an ounce of respect. So much needs to change in the work environment. I also have to shift towards disability, because it’s so demanding, that I can’t think of a possible way to handle it all. That’s where the government fails. I shouldn’t need to have this thought, that nothing will pay off.
Like eternaldarkness I also think about my privileges a lot, especially when I come here to read posts. I am allowed a free training for 2-3 years to being able to find a decent job. Mine will cost 200k+ (more than usual), cause I have a rehabilitation aspect in it too. Of course that’s a huge advantage to many folks I read about on here. I always feel guilty for not finding the strength to pull through that education.
But again, there’s so many factors missing in this picture, where all of that will be worth it.
There was a crash in pension some time ago, where almost every senior citizen doesn’t have enough, to live on by. DESPITE!! having worked to the bones in the worst of times.
As a young person, I’m not that brainwashed yet, to play that whole game until the very end.
So I can definitely understand, that with 35 you’re saying: No more of that!
I hope you’ll find a niche, that allows for you to help people and be able to pay it all back. Or who knows, maybe you’ll do something very unexpected. I’ve always appreciated you as an intelligent and well-worded user on here. Wish you the best!