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Invariably, comment threads like this, pop up when I provide some current thoughts about my career. A career that quite a few HN readers share apparently, but
by gregd 5y ago
Invariably, comment threads like this, pop up when I provide some current thoughts about my career. A career that quite a few HN readers share apparently, but that's where the similarities end.
Quite a lot of you didn't grow up in abject poverty and it shows.
The hole this puts you in, 99% of people have a really, really difficult time climbing out of and describing what this process is like, is lost on a lot of people. My biological mother made extremely poor choices and never took my future into consideration. We were housing insecure and we were food insecure. My personal safety was at times in jeopardy.
I've been in survival mode most of my life. It's only the last 5 years that I was in a position to finally make thriving choices for me AND for my family. It was only this month that I finally made the ultimate thriving choice to live in a place that I've dreamt of living in since I was a kid. I'm not even going into any other details about what effect this has on you as an adult, like homelessness, how expensive being poor is, etc.
So I'm only left feeling like laughing (and sometimes crying) when someone mentions savings. Shit, it's only been in the last 10 years, that I got over mentally calculating the cost of everything I put in my shopping cart, to make sure I could afford it. To this day, I still have anxiety over swiping my card in front of people at the grocery store, thinking that surely it's going to be declined (it hasn't in years).
I'm only just now able to start dedicating some of my salary to a savings account (or other investments). There is no time left to ultimately retire with anything matching my current salary, so I've resigned myself to work until I literally can't anymore and with a remote IT job, sitting at a desk, that sounds like 30 more years or more.
Change jobs? I guess you missed the part where I'm encountering ageism? I've had to lop off a decade of my experience in order to try to not appear older with my experience alone.
- effingwewt 5y agoYou aren't alone brother. I grew up with rich and poor family, but chose the poor. People who have never had to wonder if they were going to have a meal or a place to sleep as a child can never know how it can permanently change your life. I'm glad you are making strides, I still struggle to, so that's quite the accomplishment and you should be proud. I don't think I will ever stop tallying my groceries as I put them in the basket. Or being surprised when my kids ask for something from the impulse ailse, I literally don't even see it I'm so used to not being able to get any of it. I firmly believe if every person had to at least work a minimum wage job for a year and try to survive off it, our society would be so much better off, you wouldn't have to explain being poor to some privileged kid who has all the answers because it worked for them. Half of the country will never know what it's like to be the other half, but one side has all the incentives to keep it that way. I have family who still spout 'If I were born poor I'd still end up rich' (translation- poor people are just stupid, I'm smart). I'm cheering you on, and you give me hope!
- gregd 5y agoI'm cheering you on too! Set your sites on what you want and don't waver for as long as you can. It will happen!
- effingwewt 5y agoMuch appreciated, that seriously helps. I'm going to start trying to focus on myself more and getting myself right. Thanks for the positivity!