Size justified

Grass cut?

check.

That was pretty much all I had on my list to do today and it took ages. While nothing grows during the winter period, as soon as Summer rolls around, the garden goes wild and the grass needs to be cut often. However, with illness the last few weeks, I have been postponing and postponing and it was a jungle!

I can't wait until we can afford to landscape it so that it is easier to maintain and becomes more useful. Currently, there isn't a lot of order or function to it, making it not really the kind of place you want to spend a lot of time.

That's the lamp I picked up ^

Simple.

We paid 130€ for it and new in store, it is close to 400, so pretty happy that I found it secondhand. There is no way I would pay 400 for a lamp, no matter how much I liked it. Well, perhaps that is not true, if I had a lot more money, because if I did, I think I could go a little crazy with interior design as I tend to have a pretty expensive eye, where if I pick out something I like, it tends to be the most expensive, even if I haven't seen the prices.

It is one of those things where people tend to have an intuition for "what they would do" if they had all that money and near universally it is to be "wise" with it - not waste it like those people who end up worse off a couple years after winning the lottery. But, the fact is, that no one knows how they would act, until they are under those conditions.

Our "intuition" for these things is driven by our experience, and without the experience, it is impossible to get an accurate prediction on how we would feel and behave. I have soon over and over people who have changed markedly once their conditions have shifted, for better and for worse, and it isn't just financial.

For example, I know people who have had near death experiences and instead of being grateful for their life, they have actually become more depressed, closed off and fearful - despite their initial proclamations. I know people who have become wealthy and those who have become poor after being rich, and on both sides, people have surprised themselves at how they have reacted to the changing conditions.

Of course, many of us know what we are like when we don't have enough money, it is the other side of the equation we don't have that much experience with, isn't it? But, there is one thing that I have noticed with many people who are poorer, that there is an assumption that they don't deserve to be and also tend to believe that they have a higher morality than the rich. This is anecdotal and through my experience, but it seems pretty common.

I wonder how much of it feels justified, just like some people who are extremely wealthy believe they are above the law. It makes sense that people will find excuses for their conditions and explain them in ways that make them feel better about it, doesn't it?

Money doesn't buy happiness

No, it doesn't. Happiness isn't money dependent at all, so there is essentially equal opportunity for happiness regardless of wealth. However, not having money means there are also a whole range of issues that arise that hinder us realizing our lowest hierarchy of needs, like food and shelter. So, while it might feel better to say money doesn't matter, the reality is that for the vast majority of people, it does.

We read about these billionaires in the news and we judge them on the way they behave, but I wonder, of given the same conditions, how different would we be? Would we feel justified in our behavior? Would we feel self-made and therefore, entitled to our ways?

Unfortunately, the chances of us actually having the possibility to test ourselves out as mega rich, is about as close to zero as it gets - so I guess, we just have to keep believing we hold the moral high ground, no matter how poorly we behave ourselves. But our behavior is justified too.

Anything to make us feel better about what we don't have or can't do.

You know... Size doesn't matter.