Somewhat related, but I remember watching MC Hammer on Oprah. Oprah was interviewing him about his bankruptcy, fall from grace, etc, and at one point, he said s

Somewhat related, but I remember watching MC Hammer on Oprah. Oprah was interviewing him about his bankruptcy, fall from grace, etc, and at one point, he said something to the effect of "Please, I don't want anyone to feel any sympathy towards me. Even after losing everything, my worst day is better than most people's best days. I'm still blessed." It's really easy, especially in Silicon Valley, to fall into the "Poor Little Rich Boy" syndrome as well. I'm currently trying to buy a >$1M house in the Bay Area (very common), and have gotten outbid by $100k+ time and time again. One of my friends said "I heard you're having problems trying to get a house." My response, thinking exactly of that MC Hammer interview, was "Not having money to afford a place is a problem. Being in the position to be outbid on $1M houses is a really lucky." I guess after reading the author's post, we in this industry should really feel blessed and know we're living a life that most people on this planet would think is a dream. It really puts things in perspective, and we hopefully shouldn't need a life-threatening event to come to this realization.