A friend recently took a considerable paycut. Scary in itself, but many times scarier when you’ve got multiple mouths to feed, a mortgage, and car payments. It sucks.
And this friend is a dude pal of mine. Dudes, who are conditioned for years to be the “breadwinners,” the “head of households.” The “provider.” These are 50s era hold-overs, right? From a time when a single paycheck could provide a good life and college was $400.
This friend has taken a hit both in the wallet, and mentally. We’ve been talking quite a bit, but finally got to the source. It’s the money part. It’s making less, not providing “enough,” or as before.
I know this goes for both sexes (especially with women making less than men right out of the gate), but trying our best to not tie our self worth to our bank accounts is god damn hard work.
Without money in the bank, without “spending money,” it’s harder to meet up with friends for dinner, travel for weddings, and about a million other social things.
I know, because I’ve been piss broke the last few years. When the subject came up of that cool new show on Netflix, which at the time cost just $8/mo, I changed the subject; “oh, I just don’t watch a lot of TV” I’d say, which was a way for me to avoid, “oh, I can’t afford that.”
Money can’t buy happiness, sure. There’s a lot of miserable rich people out there. But money buys you choices, and affords you dignity, which is damn near priceless.