It’s getting to that point, absolutely. You live one time, and are spending it paying for others. This is out of control
Anyway, remind yourself of how you couldn't afford that $80-150/mo gym/class. How you didn't go on a real vacation for years because it took 8mo+ to save up for one. How you probably drove a car that constantly broke down because you couldn't get a loan on something decent. How you had to save money from your $6/hr job to eat Burger King on your lunch break across the street. How a huge chunk of your income went into driving yourself to work (gas/maintenance). How you couldn't afford a place without 3-4 roommates. How you went for years without buying a set of 4 tires, instead buying 1 used tire to replace your bald tire before the police/rain gets you.
I'll take the 150k stresses over my previous $6-12/hr stresses where I felt like I was spinning tires and never, ever going to get out of that.
I'm guessing you’ve never lived on welfare. Having done that and had a.personal income that, while short of $150K, is a sizable fraction of it (and been everywhere in between), increasing real income has involved a monotonically increasing quality of life. I’m definitely into the range, even short of $150K, where the marginal difference from each additional $ of income is much smaller than at lower levels, but it is still not negative.
Nothing if it's voluntary.
> I grew up upper middle class with parents who paid for college.
I didn't.
> I could have just as easily been born to a family with 0 wealth and had to start working at a young age and do that until I died.
I was and would likely not end up dead with 0 wealth if I can manage to keep some of what I'm now generating.
And evidently your luck, as well.
> evidently your luck, as well.
I worked at a Burger King, a hardware store, an apartment complex (plumbing toilets and whatnot), and finally put my self through college. It was an exhausting climb the whole way and I _worked_. I was never let go, and I hardly (like a $1500 a pell grant once) received assistance because I _made too much_ in my day job when I finally did go to school.
I wasn't terribly lucky other than I `lucked` into a work ethic and I `lucked` into being born in a country that still had enough of a free market that I _could_ work my way up.
And thinking on it now I don't think I was that well served by my schooling. I feel if anything I was held back in an _almost_ deliberate effort to homogenize me.
I should add that I also support local farms and businesses now that I have the funds.
You would choose welfare over a $150K salary?