Okay. I admit it. I can't help it. Must be my Midwestern values or something, but the fact that I am poorer than many of my peers and at the very least my younger brother is somehow virtuous in my mind.
I like to sneer with contempt at people who are too busy chasing the "American dream" to actually know anything about what's going on in their kid's lives. I gave up a well-paying job last year to take a lower-paying job so that I could quit traveling, and spend more time with my family. I down-sized on purpose.
I like to be contemptuous of people who are so into "keeping up with the Joneses" that they go heavily into debt to subsidize too-large houses and cars.
I like to point out with raucous glee that I have a small house, and small car and NO CREDIT CARD DEBT WHATSOEVER.
But sometimes, in the corner recesses of my jealous little heart, I have to admit that I sneer with contempt and engage in raucous glee because it makes me feel better about the fact that I have a small house and a small car and no credit card debt whatsoever.
In other words, I'd like a bigger house, too. I'd like a bigger car, too (but, God forbid, NOT an SUV). I'd like extra money to ridiculously squander at the greedy hands of consumerism. Really, a lot of times I would.
But, MOST of the time, I'm pretty happy with my little house and my little car and no credit card debt whatsoever. After all, that's already much more than many in the world can lay claim to. And I do so enjoy pretending that my lack of capital makes me somehow more virtuous than John Q. Public with his $45,000 Lexus.
But I know it doesn't. Make me more virtuous, that is. Money may not be able to buy virtue, but virtue is not automatically bestowed simply because one is lacking in greenbacks. Having less money than someone else simply means I have less money than someone else, period.
The fact that I chose to have less money is, quite simply, a choice, nothing else. I don't get any brownie points for virtue. Damn.
Good thing that money doesn't mean much to me, huh?