Money Honey

I get the impression that my father doesn't think I am going to make enough $$ when I graduate (or rather that I'll be underpaid). "Nonprofit" is almost a taboo word. Well I hate to break it to you daddy, but that's all your doing. You raised me with an amazing sense of community and family, an appreciation for the landscape, the value of hard work without pay, and being selfless. I make do with what I have, and when I need more I find a way to make it happen, but normally I realize that it is not really the material things in life that matter.

One of my classmates seems to have complete opposite values from me. She'd rather take a job she hates as long as it pays a ton (and by a "ton" i mean almost the equivalent of what my family brings in each year, but for a single-person household), so she can have time off to do something extravagant. While I want to travel the world too, I spend MORE of my time working and I want to do something that MEANS something to me. And I don't need to jet off all the time because I have family and friends to be with. [This is perhaps why my lack of a love life and my inability to find someone to share my life with is so disheartening for me.] I've never truly wanted for anything...and yet this person's basic living expenses for the year cost more than double what mine do. Is my life radically less privileged than hers? In most respects no. I can't say for sure because I don't have her life, but I'm willing to bet that in many respects mine is far richer.

So this is why I am kind of disgusted right now. Somewhere there is probably a seed of jealousy in me, but I was definitely surprised to find that my initial and overwhelming reaction to someone "needing" that much money to be utter ridiculous.