Having gone to grade school in rural Missouri near the Ozarks and then in Western Oklahoma (which was comparatively wealthy to the Ozarks), I had no sense of the possibility of making it to the top 10%. In fact I had no sense of what that might mean. It was not a goal and I never considered it in my choice of education and profession.
I guess I'm a little different than most on the blog, but I feel almost unbelievably wealthy to be positioned within the top 10%--to be able to retire in mid/late 50's was also unthinkable. So, yes, I feel incredibly wealthy and interacting on a daily basis with those near the bottom reinforces that sense, to me.
I guess one's picture of wealth can be highly relative based on one's early experiences. I went to grad school in California, so it's not like I was completely naive, but the enclaves of SoCal just seemed an alternate almost fictional existence, which I guess it was in part.
In Sartor Resartus, Carlyle writes the key to happiness is to reduce one's denominator, which I took to heart as a non-starving grad student, and I was quite happy in my impoverishment.
Granddad retired early and lived in paradise 2/3 of the year in his cabin in Colorado (that he framed and built when I was 6)--in paradise on a Postal worker's pension, SS, and some savings. He didn't spend much. I always thought he was wealthy since he always carried at least 100 bucks in his wallet, and he was my model for wealth since he did what he wanted to do, which was to fish and help neighbors out.
I guess I'm a little different than most on the blog, but I feel almost unbelievably wealthy to be positioned within the top 10%--to be able to retire in mid/late 50's was also unthinkable. So, yes, I feel incredibly wealthy and interacting on a daily basis with those near the bottom reinforces that sense, to me.
I guess one's picture of wealth can be highly relative based on one's early experiences. I went to grad school in California, so it's not like I was completely naive, but the enclaves of SoCal just seemed an alternate almost fictional existence, which I guess it was in part.
In Sartor Resartus, Carlyle writes the key to happiness is to reduce one's denominator, which I took to heart as a non-starving grad student, and I was quite happy in my impoverishment.
Granddad retired early and lived in paradise 2/3 of the year in his cabin in Colorado (that he framed and built when I was 6)--in paradise on a Postal worker's pension, SS, and some savings. He didn't spend much. I always thought he was wealthy since he always carried at least 100 bucks in his wallet, and he was my model for wealth since he did what he wanted to do, which was to fish and help neighbors out.
