I was reading this Inc article on happiness and fulfilment and they talked about relative deprivation: when “persons may feel deprived of some desirable thing relative to their own past, other persons or groups, or some other social category.” Then they gave an example of a businessowner who fell prey to “keeping up with the Joneses” in material ways and somehow that led to a massive decline in the happiness at his once thriving business in six months. I don’t know how true that story is but the idea that you should find your own happiness without comparing to others isn’t exactly new. The advice was basically to know yourself, and only compare yourself to yourself.
I thought about that in the context of my life.
I like things as much as the next person but I’m not sure that I experience that much relative deprivation that can be temporarily assuaged by spending. Sure, I could go bananapants over buying stickers that are adorable and stationery, that’s one definite weakness, along with books books and books. But my need to not feel claustrophobic among my belongings goes a long way to offsetting that strong pull.
My areas of envy are typically in my areas of weakness: intellectual. If I were to envy anyone, it might be Nicole and Maggie for being able to make good rational decisions about their kids. Or Cloud for having had the foresight to be in an area where she could enroll her kids in Spanish immersion (her eldest can read literature in Spanish. HOW. COOL. IS. THAT.) Or it might be Tanja for making the early retirement happen, while making it seem manageable, and writing and publishing TWO books (second one coming out in December!). But these are things I mostly admire about them. Money isn’t going to make them happen for me. Well, not the kind of money we’d need. Except for early retirement, having more money would help there but my point is about spending money rather than having it.
I like the good cheese, but I don’t want it all the time. Same with any other edible treat. Yummy but even I have learned moderation.
Certainly there are things we can and want to buy that have that snowball effect. Rather than being pulled to it, the snowballing repels me. The nicer car thing, for example, is a real life current example. We were mentally putting that off until it became clear it’s going to be more pain than it’s worth to delay. But the spending, the need to rearrange our parking situation (a huge pain because garages here are TINY and parking on the street is not an option), the need to figure out how to dispose of our existing car(s). All of that is so tiresome that I’m back to trying to figure out how to avoid the purchase again.
It’s probably a good thing for our finances, though less so for my psyche, that my hatred of change will lead me to look for ways to make do than to upgrade to the newest thing. I don’t WANT to have to learn how to pilot a spaceship that is a modern day car. I’m convinced that this will be me:
The first time I had to drive a car made in this decade, my shoulders were up by my ears the whole time. Hated it. Haaaaated it.
You know the thing that I MOST envy right now? This isn’t solely a pandemic thing but it most certainly is exacerbated by it. People with time. Time enough to be alone AND have to spend with other people too! Time to do one thing at a time and not have to multitask every minute of the day. Time to be creative. Time to be contemplative. Time to experiment. Time to be still. Time to be themselves and not “mom” or “manager” or “employee” or “cook” or “household manager”. I mean, I actually enjoy all those things in moderation but not when I have to be at least three of them at all times. We don’t have nearly enough money to make that kind of time happen.
I also envy people who have more choices than we have solely because they have massive shedloads of money. But since the kind of money we’re talking about is vastly more than what we’d ever see or deal with, it’s not the kind of envy that sticks. So yeah, I get green, sometimes. But thankfully not enough to feel like that has a huge impact on our lives.
Perhaps also the always ongoing Lakota project helps keep my head on more straight than it would otherwise be. If so, I’m thankful for that, too, along with the opportunity to lend a helping hand.
:: Do you have areas of relative deprivation that you struggle with or are you pretty good?
“I’m trying to teach JB to operate from a spirit of abundance.” I said to a friend. You?? My dear friend hooted. I laughed too.
Isn’t it nice to have friends who know you?
As much as I (intellectually) know we are well off, both by comparison to the rest of the world and in absolute terms even if we aren’t in the same league as our neighbors, I’m still me. My gut is still deeply rooted in the past. It’s lodged in the year 2000 when I didn’t have any financial support for college as promised, when I had to figure out how to make rent AND tuition, still protecting the Past Me that clawed her way to where we are today, inch by bloody inch.
What do I know about the spirit of abundance? Not a whole lot. I’m learning but, confession that’s not going to be a surprise to anyone who’s been here for a while: I’m still scared of being poor again. I’m still scared that it’ll all go pants. That we’ll have to start over with nothing and I won’t have it in me to do that again. I’m still scared of reliving the harsh cold last years of my mom’s life: fighting daily to get by, stressed to the gills about the bills, dying without a penny to leave behind for my kids.
As my therapist says, these are fear thoughts. I know they are. Earlier I stated unequivocally how I know we’re rich. It riled some folks when I said that it’s ridiculous not to know you’re rich when you have multi-millions in the bank. I also said that not feeling rich doesn’t make that a fact, and that if you can’t feel rich with millions, you’re deficient in something but it’s not money. I didn’t write that for clicks. If I had, I would have named names. I wrote that post because it’s both my valid observation and because I know those feelings. I have them from time to time myself! That’s how I recognize them. It’s important to remind myself, as much as anyone else it resonated with, that whatever our feelings are, we ARE rich.
The hell of it is, I can know we are rich, and also have a metric ton of fear thoughts bubbling under the surface. When I make a purchase, especially for myself, I agonize over it. I talk myself out of it, or I need a friend to talk me into it. I know $20 is ok to spend. I know $20 is ok to give. We can afford to send grieving friends flowers more than once, I know that we can help friends in need. Yet I still lie awake some nights (especially if painsomnia is already keeping me up) toting up the spending and second guessing myself. That’s going to happen, and I can’t just tell it to go away.
But maybe, aside from simply being honest with oneself, that’s another reason why it’s so important to be brutally honest about the facts of being rich. Logic can’t banish the fear but logic can pierce the fog that the fear creates. It can elbow aside the overwhelming worry that it’ll all go to pot, and point out that, as scared as my inner child is about how we were always scraping to make rent, we will probably be ok. (more…)
Year 2, Day 204: I don’t know why but I notice that I’m irritated by effusive reactions over how terribly I feel from relatives who choose not to vaccinate (not to be confused with folks who cannot, like our kids and immunocompromised folks). It’s not my choice to make for them but these days, with the pandemic raging on and killing and hurting so many, it feels like the latter is such a selfish and politically driven choice that I can’t help but feel reactive to it. I think my core self rejects sympathy from them because it doesn’t feel like it could be real? I don’t know. I suppose it doesn’t matter, I’m just noticing the feelings and now hopefully releasing them to the winds.
Actually. Before I release them, I think I do get it. Because if I want to see them, their refusal to get vaccinated feels a whole lot more personal now. Because they know how vulnerable I am, even more so than Smol because it’s quite possible that Smol has a working immune system but I don’t. And while they’re not obligated to care enough about me to get vaccinated and help a sister out, it’s clear they don’t care enough about me to get vaccinated and help a sister out. Whatever their personal wants are, they’re more important than my needs.
That’s why it feels insincere. There’s nothing I can do or say about it since that call is their own, but it feels wrong.
*****
On a commercial for a university, the narrator says: “The world equally distributes talent, but it doesn’t equally distribute opportunity.” It made me think of this post I’d just read from Jim at Route to Retire: “Many times folks want to attribute financial success to one’s background. …. I don’t buy into that. I’ve already said that you need to play the hand you’re dealt to live the life you dream and I meant that.”
Later in the comments he agrees with me that what you do matters, so does where you start from, and so does luck. So he and I agree. But initially it made me flash back to all the PF bloggers who argued that it’s ONLY down to what you do with what you have, and that your background has nothing to do with your successes. That group overlaps with the group that thinks everything in this world is merit based, microaggressions don’t exist, and that diversity is pandering to the masses rather than leveling a heavily tilted playing field. It’s weird.
Year 2, Day 205: I was struck by a realization today. Yesterday, a friend played sounding board for a family holiday communication and scheduling dilemma. Basically a part of my family that I miss and wanted to see, but has been adamantly anti COVID vax, and only masks when required, hasn’t been answering my messages for months. The last time was when I asked a direct question about gifts they’d sent for the kids. So I messaged a direct question about holiday plans and it’s been crickets for weeks. In the interim, I’ve seen other parts of the family and I didn’t think we had an issue since they readily agreed to all staying masked for both my sake and the baby’s sake. I’m immunocompromised enough that I truly can’t take risks and they all know that. (more…)
Year 2, Day 197: What a day. Up three times to the piercing screams of a Very Sad Baby with a low grade fever, even though PiC was going to cover, because I can’t sleep through that ruckus and it’s really hard for one of us to medicate an uncooperative baby at night. He took the last call alone because I couldn’t move anymore but I couldn’t stop myself propelling my body out of bed automatically the first two times. Unintentional, but still. The damage was done.
Whatever it is that started the fever in Smol also left them with general fussiness (so many tears, soooo many tears) and a red nose. I can’t see any other obvious symptoms – no coughing or sneezing but they have cried so hard they’ve thrown up on me, twice. This is NOT our deal, child. Vomit –> PiC. Not Me. Sigh. At least it’s not sick vomit, and yes, there is a difference. And somehow it matters to my brain.
Of course the virus also took out my ability to function. Every millimeter aches, breathing hurts, my brain can only zero in on faults (that floor is filthy and needs to be scrubbed!), I’m feeling sad and angry and lonely and isolated. But I don’t want to talk to anyone because I’m angry and tired and hurting.
I’m sad that when this happens, the load all falls on PiC. I’m sad that I have a million dishes to keep spinning and when I’m sick, I cannot spin but half of them, if that. I hate feeling this way. I hate feeling physically crappy and feeling emotionally like a scooped out husk of a fruit rind. I’m also mad that my body still cannot handle viruses.
Turns out, of course, Smol Acrobat does not like taking medicine, and found that alternating a few CCs of meds with a scoop of yogurt helps that medicine go down. I had to take the morning part since he had meetings he couldn’t cancel but thankfully PiC quickly took the rest of the day and tomorrow off so that he can be primary childminder and I can get some rest.
Year 2, Day 190: I woke up and realized it was Monday. Boo. But it doesn’t feel terrible right off the bat. Especially since Smol managed to sleep til 615 and PiC took them for an hour so I got to roll over and doze for a little longer before getting up and getting breakfast ready. I’m liking my current iteration of eggs: scrambled with diced tomatoes, ham, and cheese. It checks off the JB requirement of cheese and mine of incorporating some kind of vegetable (or … fruit?).
*****
PiC and I are so different. I interrupted him doing his pre-walk round up of things and he forgot to grab a poop bag for Sera. Me? I won’t risk running out without one so I stuff two bags in every jacket pocket and two rolls of poop bags in my dog walking pouch.
He buys supplies as we run out. I insist on stocking up two months’ or more of non-perishable or long-storing food and supplies.
I think this is fairly representative of our different approaches to life and money. 😂 (more…)
Every so often, a PF blogger tweets: do you think you’re rich?
For myself, I like Done By Forty’s approach to the question. I like reflecting on our good fortune and where we’ve done well, where we’ve made mistakes, how we can better appreciate all that we have.
The conversation on Twitter took a somewhat irritating to me turn. In the land of at least semi-self-delusional personal finance, you apparently can’t be rich if you don’t have at least $10M in spending money, or if you don’t make at least $100k more per year than whatever tax bracket or income level is being scrutinized for tax purposes. It turns out the latest furor is something along the lines of $400k annual income “isn’t that much”.
O RLY.
This latest meltdown was linked to the proposed changes to the treatment of the backdoor Roth. People can really fix their mouths to say that four freaking hundred THOUSAND dollars a year in income doesn’t equal being wealthy or rich or whatever equivalent to NOT POOR that is. Look. I don’t make that kind of money. Together with PiC we still don’t make that kind of money. But we also aren’t playing the kind of nonsense that is PF bloggers crying poor. That’s just ridiculous. Tennis coach ridiculous.
In any case, with that sort of conclusion, the phrasing seems silly. You can think anything you want. That doesn’t make your thinking right or true. Case in point: One blogger who regularly tweets about their $4.4M net worth replied that he doesn’t think they’re rich. Okaaaaayyyy. If they can snow themselves into thinking they’re not rich, I wonder what other lies they tell themselves. Then I walk away because I don’t like hanging out with liars.
We may not FEEL rich when compared to our neighbors and coworkers but we are. Here are a few ways that we know. (more…)
Spiritually: I had a dream about dead loved ones being alive and that always hurts my soul. Emotionally, I’ve been reading Codependent No More and some of the stuff I identify with there is slightly jarring. None of it is actually a surprise, I’d already identified those compulsions in myself as things that don’t serve me and need to stop. But it’s still a bit jarring in the early phase. Physically, I put Smol Acrobat in the baby carrier for a short walk today and the impact on my entire body is unbelievable. Ow ow ow and ow.
Parenting pain: we’re in some kind of regression with Smol where they don’t want much solid food, we have to compensate with formula, and they aren’t sleeping even 9 hours at night.
*****
I could feel the urge for retail therapy nipping at me today. I noticed it and I acknowledged that I felt like that. Eventually it passed.
Which is not to say I don’t have plans to spend money. I have a couple but they’re very intentional. One is for my holiday gifts for a large swath of niblings and supporting a creator while I’m at it. One was for supporting an author whose work I have long enjoyed. I did the latter already.
But those plans exist separately from that urge to distract and numb from my real feelings.
After a while, I felt like I recognized what was bubbling up. I’m feeling lonely and isolated emotionally. I miss my dearest friends. I feel like my second child isn’t nearly as loved and cared for within the community as JB was. I know a huge part of that is because of the pandemic. People literally cannot be here to visit the way they did with JB was this age, nor does anyone really have the capacity to show their caring in other ways. That doesn’t mean they don’t care, they simply can’t be here. Much like my pregnancy, the flip side of not hearing all the judginess and the snark and the unwelcome advice because no one was around is that I also didn’t get to feel loved the way I might have in non-pandemic times because no one is around.
Even if it’s not true, the feelings feed the monster in me that insists I don’t deserve love and my fear of rejection. One of the things my therapist will ask me is “is that reality or is that perception?” In a lot of cases I don’t feel like I can tell the difference. It feels true that I don’t deserve love, that I won’t amount to anything, that nothing I do matters. I don’t know if that’s true because if not by my own measure, then by what would I be judging this stuff? In this case even if it feels true that I am isolated from my community and I feel that it’s because no one cares about us, it’s probably more true that people are just really busy with their own lives and own troubles and it has nothing to do with us.
I’m noticing this more as I make my way through therapy and my reading. I’m partway through “Codependent No More” and so far it’s not telling me anything I don’t have some sense of but it’s good to read it.
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.