I wouldn't be glad. I'd be anxious and frustrated. But that _would_ motivate me to work harder. Or to take a hard, honest look to see if what I'm doing makes se

I wouldn't be glad. I'd be anxious and frustrated. But that _would_ motivate me to work harder. Or to take a hard, honest look to see if what I'm doing makes sense. Not having much money also means low expectations from others and mental freedom to do something outrageous. The Chinese have a saying "fighting with your backs to the river" that originated from the Battle of Jingxing around 205 B.C.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Jingxing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Jingxing In that battle the general Han Xin organized his troops against a river, with no prospect of retreat. Apparently it focused their fighting abilities immensely. From the wikipedia article: At the feast after the battle, Han Xin's officers, still somewhat incredulous at their own good fortune, inquired into the rationale for the astounding deployments. Han Xin explained that as he was commanding a ragtag army and he was not a general of high renown, he had to resort to such drastic measures to force everyone to fight hard. This led to the saying "You achieve survival by fighting from a position of certain death (置之死地而後生)"