When you are poor, your discretionary investments are a small fraction of your future income. So you can afford to blow out your brokerage account a few times.

When you are poor, your discretionary investments are a small fraction of your future income. So you can afford to blow out your brokerage account a few times. In a way, college, marriage, and kids are leveraged bets on your future income so they are more risky than gambling past income. When you are wealthy you have to be more disciplined and pace yourself. The only thing you thing that you can’t slow down the pace of is time.