Whether you want to keep feeling guilty is up to you, but you should definitely go thank your parents again!
> When I read about the guy who takes two trains a bus and walks a mile to get to work, while trying his best to save just $1100 for a car
In countries where public transportation is the norm, there isn't anything strange about the first part of the sentence. It's just that USA really punishes non drivers through some really poor infrastructure choices made 60-70 years ago.
You're projecting that the commenter succeeded because of their parents, not in spite of them.
There's a way out if you bust your ass and do nothing but obsess about finding something better. Takes a while. Sometimes it takes 18 months just to stumble into an opportunity worth pursuing. Though if you don't put in the effort (and get a bit lucky), nothing changes.
One thing I definitely took away from that article? Holy crap am I frugal. I save a large multiple of #2 for retirement (Solo 401K and IRA maxed every year, with a bit extra on top in a taxable account), and spend about on par with #3. Granted, I've earned what I got so I don't squander it.
As for #4's commute, I've done similarly bad recently, albeit voluntarily. Walk to bus station, take bus one. Transfer to second bus, then walk two-thirds of a mile. About 100 minutes each way, and an average of 3 1/2 hours a day. I could save a wee bit of time with other options (not including car), but at 50-200% increased cost, so I maintained the frugal option even if it cost me another 30-40 minutes a day. Though it does mean that you tend to wake up at 5:45AM to make breakfast and then get to a client for 9AM, to then get home by around 7PM and hopefully have eaten and finished any chores by 8PM. You are beat. It's not easy to then put in extra effort to get other things -- like looking for a better opportunity -- done.
Most of my early jobs were 15-25 minutes each way via car. Later on as I moved towards increasingly urban areas it did increase to around 45-60 minutes each way. Then I moved, and shrunk it to 15-20 minutes again via mass transit. Then I started working for myself, and that's anywhere from 0 minutes (remote) to 35-40 minutes each way -- with a few extreme cases being 90-100 minutes each way because I choose not to drive (I have a car, but it exists for fun, not commuting, though I'll use it for a commute or meeting in a pinch) and to minimize cost.
I love every step of my daily uphill walk, especially in the winter. I love the endorphins boosting my start to the day, and I love knowing I can pretty much eat as I please (excluding alcohol) and end the day at a caloric balance.
Side note: I previously lived further than practical for walking, but with my car in a driveway it was much faster to drive. Wouldn't go back for any reason.
It's ok to observe differences and then keep that in mind when relating to other people. Use this knowledge to be more empathetic. Be kinder. Be grounded. Be connected. You can lead your best life earning tons of money while also understanding your relationship to the world and the diversity it contains. You can let this understanding inform your responses and intentions.
Processing the world isn't simple. But you can continue to evolve how you relate to differences and different people, and that can guide your overall goals as well as your decisions in specific interactions.
My answer has become: Attempt to set some business idea of your own in motion. That doesn't mean that you are going to be good or motivated at business or have any worthwhile plans, of course. That is the curse of being in that position, and a lot of people do run away from such a responsibility. But it's a concrete way in which you can make things less broken - build people's careers, sell useful products or services, market new ideas, etc. It makes me feel OK with myself.
And most crucially, it really doesn't have to be a brave "save the world with VC backing" plan - it can be a totally selfish idea like "a cool gadget for me and my friends", accomplished by employing a handful of contractors for a few months part-time. The saving comes in via the attention to social responsibility you take in implementing it - whom you employ, how you employ them, adapting the product to a marketing strategy, what manufacturing processes you use, etc. All of that creates an atmosphere around the business, and the atmosphere itself changes the way in which the world works. The final product is just one tiny part of it.
Personally, I don't.
In life, luck is always involved. Some people are born with rare diseases. Some people are born with physical attributes that make them more desirable by their preferred sex. Some people are born as an ethnicity that gives them more social power than others. Some people are born smarter than others. Some people are born more susceptible to mental illness. Some people are born into very rough families. Etc.
I suppose I don't feel bad for having what I have because quite frankly, other people who may have less wealth than I certainly have life advantages over me to which I would certainly not expect them to feel guilty about.
https://www.stilldrinking.org/programming-sucks
> So no, I'm not required to be able to lift objects weighing up to fifty pounds. I traded that for the opportunity to trim Satan's pubic hair while he dines out of my open skull so a few bits of the internet will continue to work for a few more days.
Oh sure I'm not typically over-the-top like the article. I do enjoy the act of programming much of the time, and camel-y jokes. But I don't feel bad that I'm getting paid a lot of money for what I much-of-the-time consider work that a bright high schooler could also do. Having worked with some not-so-bright college interns recently I feel even less guilty, if that's possible. To some extent we all make our own choices, mine led me here, why should I agonize over where other people's led them? I'm not interested in controlling their lives.
Nothing wrong with the top end of things. Would be good to have some kind of basic income in place to help patch things on the bottom end.
Not really. I feel like I've put in the time and effort (along with a little luck) to get to where I am in life.
Unfortunately, life is unfair. While it was nice having parents who supported me, I feel like it's just an advantage in life I was fortunate to have. On the contrary, I'm a short, unattractive, non-white male living in a city that's 90% white; there isn't much I can do in that regards. That's just life.
That's literally all the data actually said. If your no-content comment was supposed to convey something else, I'm afraid it's lost on me.
you could try actually reading it.
Does anyone else feel extremely guilty about this? When I read about the guy who takes two trains a bus and walks a mile to get to work, while trying his best to save just $1100 for a car, my heart breaks. The work I do is easy - I sit in front of a screen in my own house. When I go to a fast food restaurant and order from a woman in her 40s, who likely has kids at home, I can't help but feel a sense of guilt (and also luck). Even as I earn more money, I feel guilty spending it, so I end up just saving a large part of it.
Not sure there's a point or a problem or something I'm trying to solve, just wanted to share my feelings and see if others felt the same way, and hear any advice or thoughts they had.
Edit: I do take some (perverse) solace in the fact that it seems many extremely poor people across the world seem happier than the average wealthy office worker I know. Add up: long commute + winter weather (and darkness) + unfulfilling work + expenses that expand to their level of income = potentially a pretty unhappy person, even though they are high income.
Edit 2: Reading about how the low earner saved up for a $160 pair of shoes also gave me some warm feelings. Maybe that's why rich people do challenging, but relatively pointless things like hiking mountains. We don't have enough challenges in our daily lives, so we invent them so we can feel good about ourselves after.