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No one forces you to live lavishly. You can rent a small apartment instead of buying a house and having to pay a mortgage, you can travel on a modest budget ins
by Rod 16y ago
No one forces you to live lavishly. You can rent a small apartment instead of buying a house and having to pay a mortgage, you can travel on a modest budget instead of buying a Summer house you'll use only 2 weeks per year. You don't need a trophy wife if you have some game. You have no one to blame but yourself for your weaknesses. Yes, because living to impress others is weakness.
A couple of friends did what you mentioned. Lived frugally, saved a lot of money, then started their own companies. They're both millionaires now. The guys who were too weak to pull that off are still in "the Street", they lead comfortable lives, but they are miserable... they are slaves to their vanity and to their trophy wives who have a lot to gain from divorce.
This has nothing to do with idealism. It has to do with willpower. Most people lack the will to improve themselves simply because it's too much work and effort...
- zackattack 16y agoThe good news is that willpower is a muscle, easily trained. http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/06/self-discipline/ http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/06/self-discipline/
- weeksie 16y agoWhat you don't seem to understand is that most people can't make themselves see far enough into the future to deny satisfaction. That's not a weakness, that's normal. The ability to see beyond that and delay gratification is a _strength_. It's something that irks me about people who are gifted with a lot of will power is that they (myself included when I was younger) assumed that people who didn't possess their traits were weak; they're not weak, you're just gifted. I've worked for everything that I have (and I'm not doing too shabby) but I won't pretend for a moment that my position in life isn't due to happenstance of genetics. I can delay gratification, many people can't and that makes me lucky.