Does anyone have recommendations on how to overcome the resentment I feel against people like the author? I am jealous and frustrated by their advantage, but that opinion is purely negative and doesn't help me at all.
I can only imagine what someone in chronic lifelong pain must feel about me.
I can just jump up and run whenever, wherever I feel like and my prescription drug bill each month is zero. Talk about an unfair advantage in life!
My teeth are horrible. A combination of genetics and an adolescence/pre-college diet of soda, I'd imagine. We're talking trips to the dentist every month or two for fillings, replacing fillings, the odd root canal here and there.
This year was the first year I've ever "used up" all of my dental insurance. Let's count my blessings, first of all: Holy shit am I lucky to have a world class dentist a few blocks away. Holy shit am I lucky to even have dental insurance at all, provided by my employer.
I recently scheduled a root canal for a tooth that's been causing tremendous pain. Crippling, anything touches the tooth and I black out for a couple seconds, creeping into a constant stabbing headache, barely kept under control by OTC pain meds, kind of pain. Without dental insurance, it'll be $600. Can I afford to do this every month? Heck no, this will be the last time I go to the dentist until insurance comes back in 2019.
But how fortunate am I that I can afford to pay for this once? Imagine being told it would cost even a few hundred at a cheaper dentist, you don't have insurance, and you're already counting dollars to make ends meet. Imagine being born in a third world country and you've got this problem; at best you'd just pull the tooth, which is going to create more problems, hopefully better problems.
During one dental procedure in the past I was prescribed Vicodin, 30 pills. I went to the pharmacist; that'll be $3 with insurance. What?!
Pain is a universal human feeling that, if you take a moment, offers an amazing moment of reflection and humility about how lucky most of us are that it's temporary. If you have chronic migraines, or joint pain, or diabetes, or anything like that: it affects everything you can do in life. You can't think clearly. You can't work as hard as your potential. This impacts all the future earnings you'll ever earn.
If you're generally healthy, generally pain free, and have access to healthcare when you're not, you're literally among the luckiest people on the planet.
I personally take two approaches when I feel any kind of resentment toward people who seem to have enormous and/or unfair advantages.
I first consider my own objective advantages. Instead of being born into a solid middle class home in Southern California a few decades ago, I could have been born in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Yemen recently, or almost anywhere in the world more than a century ago.
That I am here posting on Hacker News puts me in the (at least) top 1% most fortunate humans who have ever lived.
Secondly, I consistently walk in and practice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoicism It's kind of my own version of it, I guess a modernized variant of what's found in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meditations
I've found that these perspectives help me with all kinds of psychological challenges.
disclaimer: Just as resentful as you are. I paid for college by enlisting in the military. Glad I could do my little part to keep the country safer for people like her...see? There is that resentment coming on again, it's such a tricky bastard of a feeling.
I grew up with a number of people who were far more well off than me. One kid made more interest on his inheritance -most of it hadn't even arrived yet- than my parents made all year.
There's pros and cons. The pros you know about. Skiing holidays, expensive cars, everything you can point your finger at.
The cons are a bit more subtle. The feeling of never being able to deserve anything. The feeling of not participating in the struggle of life, which every living creature other than a rich human kid has. Face it, it doesn't matter how yo do on that math test. Frustration when inevitably some kid you know without all the advantages does better than you.
Also concretely rich people are no happier than poor people, above some quite low limit. It's not like the rich kids I knew were much happier than the poor ones, they could be grumpy as well. In fact it seems to be the case that barely anything affects how happy people feel, as long as they've got more than a baseline.
So even if you somehow managed to swap financial situations with some silver spoon kid, chances are you'd not feel any better.
I think that the experiences diverge the most as adults actually. Kids don't have many responsibilities and most go to school. Minimum wage jobs as a teen can actually be fun. You're surrounded by coworkers your age and everyone slacks off. It's low pressure in the sense that you and your coworkers don't care about getting promoted or fired.
As adults, rich kids can choose fulfilling, fun careers (or none at all). The non-rich slave in unfulfilling, soul sucking jobs, constantly worrying about money and retirement.
It's not the cool toys or expensive experiences that make wealth attractive. It's the ability to not work a 9-5 job without the fear of starvation or poverty.
The trick is to look down sometimes too, you're probably more fortunate than some people, should they resent you for it? (the answer could be yes, in which case your resentment is perfectly reasonable, but so is someone else's resentment of you)
Mine is basically... The world is decidedly unfair. Even though some people, e.g. trust fund kids, are dealt pocket aces at birth, you can't be angered because you'd be grateful it if happened to you. However, being in this class comes with obligations. These people should be aware of this obligation and they should be striving to produce great things with their means. If they don't, then they don't deserve their advantages, they should illicit frustration, and they should be maligned.
The trick is to recognize what you do and do not have control over. In relativity you do not control as much as you think.
We all die the same in the end, so what really matters?
Jesus said:
“Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”
16 And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. 17 He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’
18 “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. 19 And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’
20 “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’
21 “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God
Be reasonably selfish and busy, and it brings you too many negative emotions, simply ignore it. There are way too many rich people lacking self-awareness to get angry about.