Driven5 said:In reply to frenchyd :
I'm picking on it because it was explicitly brought up as part of the pathway to homeownership, and subsequently wealth and contentment, when it's actually not.
But it’s part of the tax code. Can you defend any part of the tax code?
I don't feel that the tax code has caused me any significant unhappiness. I don't hold a grudge against wealthy people for being well off, nor do I assume that they are inherently happier than I am.
I do feel that there is a lot of room for improvement with regards to how tax dollars are spent, especially when it comes to education. As a kid, I remember feeling that youths (utes) were not a priority in society. Schools were (and still are) largely underfunded, considering that the country's future depends on the quality of the services they provide. But that is a whole 'nother topic.
yupididit said:AAZCD said:Toyman01 said:lateapexer said:...Everything to do with understanding that your reactions to whatever happens in your life is something that is in your control and not dictated by your circumstances.
Nail, meet head.
Happiness is a choice.
It comes from within. There isn't a soul in the world that can provide it for you. Long term, there isn't a soul that can take it from you. When you wake up in the morning, choose to be happy.
They can learn otherwise, but often don't recognize that they can or should feel otherwise.
Or don't have the resources to get help.le
Well, there are also lots of forces out there pushing the opposite story. For example, how many headlines have you read along the lines of "cost of living rising, income staying static"?
It's much easier to get someone to agree with you when you say "it's not your fault that ouu suck, it's (government, rich people, corporations, media, bullies, etc)" Rather than the hard truth which is "you are in control of your own situation, if you think you suck well then, what can you change to change that" The cost of living article is presented in a way that sends the first message, not the second.
How many articles have you seen suggesting people just swiften themselves up?e
In reply to EastCoastMojo :
There are arguments that schools aren't actually as related to the future of the country as we tend to think. Not saying I agree, but considering what I do for work and how much of it I learned in school (almost none), I think there is a point.
Interesting to think about, what actually impacts the future of a country the most. Ie if we could pick where to invest for the biggest country ROI, what would we pick?
In reply to Robbie :
Certainly schools can't provide all the knowledge we may use in our eventual career paths, but if none of what you learned in school is applicable, doesn't this highlight the shortcomings of the existing school curriculum? I'm not trying to be all "won't somebody think of the children" here, but part of becoming a valued member of society is actually feeling like you are a valued member of society. Investing in education, giving kids a safe place that is stimulating and encouraging in which to learn, and that provides practical knowledge and skills, seems like a great way to produce intelligent, confident young workers which could stabalize the economy and have more to give back to society in general. I don't know, maybe I'm just a dreamer. 
AAZCD said:Toyman01 said:lateapexer said:...Everything to do with understanding that your reactions to whatever happens in your life is something that is in your control and not dictated by your circumstances.
Nail, meet head.
Happiness is a choice.
It comes from within. There isn't a soul in the world that can provide it for you. Long term, there isn't a soul that can take it from you. When you wake up in the morning, choose to be happy.
Not everyone can do that. Those who lack agency are probably often the 'Angery' people.
"The sense of agency (SA), or sense of control, is the subjective awareness of initiating, executing, and controlling one's own volitional actions in the world. It is the pre-reflective awareness or implicit sense that it is I who is executing bodily movement(s) or thinking thoughts." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense_of_agency
While I work on cars, I often listen to audiobooks. My most recent was "The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma" (Learning to cope with a friend with TBI and PTSD). Severe trauma and living in a world of chronic mental trauma (such as growing up with an abusive care-taker) often robs a soul of it's sense of agency. These people literally do not have the sense that they have any control of their circumstances. It is a significant part of the population - I've read as high as 1/4. They can learn otherwise, but often don't recognize that they can or should feel otherwise.
Great point and I think it speaks to the point far better than anything I’ve said thus far.
Thank you!
EastCoastMojo said:I don't feel that the tax code has caused me any significant unhappiness. I don't hold a grudge against wealthy people for being well off, nor do I assume that they are inherently happier than I am.
I do feel that there is a lot of room for improvement with regards to how tax dollars are spent, especially when it comes to education. As a kid, I remember feeling that youths (utes) were not a priority in society. Schools were (and still are) largely underfunded, considering that the country's future depends on the quality of the services they provide. But that is a whole 'nother topic.
If you played baseball and took three swings, you’d be out. Some people get to play baseball and get thirty 40 or more swings because the tax code says they can.
Normal people don’t like to play an unfair game but that’s what we are doing here in America. Children of wealthy parents get breaks you and I aren’t even aware of. Preference, they get the best most involved teachers who make complex subjects easy.
Wealthy children get accepted to the best schools and colleges because of their parents. Because of that they are connected with other movers and shaker’s children going there too and friendships are formed.
Money is lent not because of any particular merit but because Skipper was my roommate at Harvard. Terms and conditions are generous and supplemental loans a matter of course. If the project or company is going to fail they find a patsy and saddle him with the failure rather than take the hit.
Robbie said:yupididit said:AAZCD said:Toyman01 said:lateapexer said:...Everything to do with understanding that your reactions to whatever happens in your life is something that is in your control and not dictated by your circumstances.
Nail, meet head.
Happiness is a choice.
It comes from within. There isn't a soul in the world that can provide it for you. Long term, there isn't a soul that can take it from you. When you wake up in the morning, choose to be happy.
They can learn otherwise, but often don't recognize that they can or should feel otherwise.
Or don't have the resources to get help.le
Well, there are also lots of forces out there pushing the opposite story. For example, how many headlines have you read along the lines of "cost of living rising, income staying static"?
It's much easier to get someone to agree with you when you say "it's not your fault that ouu suck, it's (government, rich people, corporations, media, bullies, etc)" Rather than the hard truth which is "you are in control of your own situation, if you think you suck well then, what can you change to change that" The cost of living article is presented in a way that sends the first message, not the second.
How many articles have you seen suggesting people just swiften themselves up?e
Plenty, countless, there are always people pointing and telling you you fail because, blah, blah , blah!!!
Most people do the best they can with the deck stacked against them. Some, the brave few try to change things.
I wish I had that courage! But there are those out there swimming up stream trying to improve things for everyone
In reply to frenchyd :
Nah. Its time to grow people with a sense of impending doom, so they are motivated to improve themselves when they have the opportunity, instead of hanging your future well being on a man whose father died at 56. The feeling that the simple act of wanting to move out and divorce shouldn't change my desire to support them strikes me as odd, too.
My daughters got told, "There is no man alive worth giving up your ability to look after yourself."
Maybe I'm angry too...
In reply to EastCoastMojo :
Spot on!!!
In reply to frenchyd :
Perhaps, but then I apply the old addage of "don't hate the player, hate the game". I don't blame the rich, although I understand the point you are making about them making the rules in their favor as much as possible. People with influence are gonna influence. Kind of like a casino stacking the odds in favor of the house, except you can choose to not patronize a casino. So how does the average joe become influential? Should it start with a solid education and exposure to critical thinking and problem solving? Can we get there from here or are the cards so solidy stacked against the middle and lower classes that we can never level the field?
Death and taxes. Cannot be avoided. For me, if I hadn't hit the fun button earlier in my life, Me and the Mrs would be in a better place financially. But I'm OK with that. Lots of fine memories. You can't take it with you, and we are doing fine with what we got. Still dreaming of better times. It takes more muscles to frown, than smile. Simplistic I know, but ......
One more thought. If everyone is sitting at a table, and puts there problems on it, see how fast you take yours back.
frenchyd said:Driven5 said:In reply to frenchyd :
I'm picking on it because it was explicitly brought up as part of the pathway to homeownership, and subsequently wealth and contentment, when it's actually not.
But it’s part of the tax code. Can you defend any part of the tax code?
It doesn't much matter to me what code it's part of...tax, penile, da Vinci, or otherwise. You also don't seem to hold the tax code in very high regard, but were the one defending this part of it. I will however defend the defensible. So while perverted by decade after decade of adding loophole after loophole for the highest earners (and corporations) to circumvent more and more of it, the basic foundation of the tax code being progressively structured is readily validated by the inherently diminishing value of income and wealth.
A lot of great wisdom has been imparted here, and I really can't add anything new that would be considered profound compared to what's already been offered. I can only speak from experience. I would not even think to bore you with my first 65 years, but the past four years since I jumped off the treadmill has been profound for me. I have virtually no stress anymore, and no anger. From my perspective, perhaps stress is the cause of anger. I have virtually no anger since I retired. I'm thankful for that and think based on that I think that may have something to do with the extreme anger we see in society today. I think stress related to "life challenges" has a lot to do with anger.
And to Frenchy, I say congratulations. Your original post has generated for you the most posts to date ... and in the shortest amount of time. So whether you were right or wrong or slightly off base in the OP, it doesn't matter, you definitely struck a nerve and generated a lot of chatter. That's what's important. Good work! (I think I probably hold the forum record for original posts that have fewer than five responses). 
EastCoastMojo said:In reply to frenchyd :
Can we get there from here or are the cards so solidy stacked against the middle and lower classes that we can never level the field?
I have heard it said, and I think I agree, that if you took all the money in the world, and evenly distributed it among every person in the world, within a decade things would be back to the same or similar people having most of it, and the same or similar people having none of it.
EastCoastMojo said:In reply to frenchyd :
Perhaps, but then I apply the old addage of "don't hate the player, hate the game". I don't blame the rich, although I understand the point you are making about them making the rules in their favor as much as possible. People with influence are gonna influence. Kind of like a casino stacking the odds in favor of the house, except you can choose to not patronize a casino. So how does the average joe become influential? Should it start with a solid education and exposure to critical thinking and problem solving? Can we get there from here or are the cards so solidy stacked against the middle and lower classes that we can never level the field?
There are many opinions on how to do that. And I fear it would be difficult to have that discussion without it becoming political to some extent. In my simplest personal opinion, it would be to play the game as little as possible. How to "not" play will depend some on your situation.
Yes, and yes. I said I didn't want to bore you with my first 65 years, and I still won't. But I will say that my parents had nothing. But they loved each other, and they loved my brother and me. And they did the best they could and sacrificed so we had a modicum of what was considered acceptable in the 50's and 60's. I worked alone to pay for my education. I never had any animosity to those more fortunate than me. I knew my roots and did what I could to elevate myself. While I was doing that I had anger for a lot of other things ... I had stress from a number of outside sources. Once that stress was alleviated, my anger disappeared. So what is the source of everyone's stress-induced anger? That's a rhetorical question, because it's multifaceted and really, even though we all have our opinions, I don't think any of us can solve this very serious problem without each individual identifying the source of their own anger. So in my opinion, it's not up to "the government" to solve this. That never worked before, and it won't work going forward. It's up to the individual to solve their own problem. But how is that accomplished? That's not my specialty. I'm just throwing out the question because I don't have the answer. (Well I could give a solution, but it would no doubt shut down this thread).
In reply to Gary :
That's exactly right, individual's need to take responsibility for their own selves. The individual is in the best position to understand, influence, and fix their own problems.
It's just I'm never going to get elected (I'm sure there are plenty of reasons actually 
) when I say "your crappy situation is your own problem".
Especially if the opponent can say "your crappy situation isn't your fault, it's Robbie's!"
In reply to Robbie :
Unless Robbie had the power to help make policy, and supported special interest causes over the cause of the people, which made their crappy situation even crappier and even harder to decrapify...Then it technically would become at least partially his fault. 
Yes, this is largely how both 'sides' get a the support of their 'base'.
Of course, I'd never get elected either though, because my campaign slogan would be"Both sides are idiots...Don't be one too". I'd probably make a joke of it using Newton's third law for the nerds, not helping my cause. More importantly, I would offer real long-term solutions that don't care about whose ideology is whose, and which would deal with the root of problems rather than the much more visible symptoms specific to one side or the other...Which is what keeps the cycle of stupidity (and the diametrically opposed two party system) going. As such, i'd get nothing done anyway, as both sides would revolt against me for political reasons rather than logical ones. So ultimately no big loss to the country for me never going into politics, because I'd be horrible at it. LOL.
Personally though, I've found some peace in accepting that neither my vote (which I still do) nor my opinions matter when it comes to elections or policy making, and there is little to nothing I can do to change what the government does at pretty much any level. Be it health care policy, education policy, tax policy, environmental policy, foreign policy, legal policy, housing policy, HOA policy, etc. These are things I cannot change, and the people who can are mostly all greedy selfish idiots who won't. But I can't change that either, because so are almost all of the alternatives. So instead I have begun focusing as much as possible on simply identifying and concerning myself only with those things I actually do have some reasonable power to change in this world. Which are also typically closer to my heart and bring me greater contentment. Its often still easier said than done, but that's ok too. Improvement of any kind is a process, not an event.
STM317 said:RevRico said:STM317 said:Because blaming others has always been easier than acknowledging that you might be partially responsible for the E36 M3ty situation that you're in.
Nobody wants to accept that they themselves are pieces of E36 M3 who've raised bigger pieces of E36 M3 because it doesn't fit in with their happy goal in life.
^^^^ I think we agree more than you might realize.
Sometimes E36 M3ty stuff happens to good people. I'm sorry if that's the case for you. But if it's routinely happening over a lifetime, I'd have to reflect on what choices or attitudes might be contributing to those end results. An attitude of victimization can be poisonous, even if it's rightly earned inititially. Successful people have E36 M3ty stuff happen to them too, but they shake it off more easily and keep going.
I would go as far as to say that anger is a poison you, yourself, drink. You put the cup to your own lips. Being angry inflicts extra damage on you above the whole reason you are angry in the first place and it paves the way to be angry all the time at everything. The ability to shake it off and move on is a life skill that it took me way too long to win the badge for but I'll tell you that not getting angry when E36 M3 is out of hand is both satisfying and an opportunity to poison someone else.
Step 1: Buy a motorcycle
Step 2: Park it just outside where you are made most angry
Step 3: When you feel anger, leave on your motorcycle
You are welcome.
I think a lot of people really misunderstand who exactly the rich and the poor are. They are not static groups. Many people have been both rich and poor, sometimes more than once, in their lives. When most people say they want to be rich, I don't think they fully understand what that means, or how it is achieved. It's not a secret. Most rich in this country were not born rich. Becoming rich takes a combination of smarts, talent, hard work, luck, opportunity, and planning. Lots of ways to cook the recipe, but people who are not rich and do not plan to become rich tend to focus on the opportunity and luck parts of it. They also focus on those who have inherited wealth or amassed it quickly. They also tend to associate wealth with unfairness. But the truth is most people who have become rich did so in a very boring and undramatic manner. They lived modest lives within their means. They tried to avoid borrowing money. They paid themselves first. Not as sexy as a life of luxury, but that is how most of the rich got that way. Maybe not the 1%ers, but most of the others in the top 10%.
I'm not rich, yet. But I will be. I'm smart, and I work hard. I don't like risk, so I'm not the type to get rich quick. But I can plan and do math. I know how much I need to save and invest, little by little. It adds up quick, and the younger one starts, the better. I kick myself for not starting earlier. It does take sacrifice. You may have to work a job (or two) that you don't like for a bit, or skip that vacation that you want to take. I think it is short sighted to demonize the vast majority of the rich because they had the strength to make choices that many others had but passed on.
Giant Purple Snorklewacker said:I would go as far as to say that anger is a poison...
One that in my opinion and experience is generally brewed from some underlying form of fear. One of the most powerful questions you can get somebody who is angry to internalize, including yourself, happens to be "What is it that you are so afraid of?"
Giant Purple Snorklewacker said:I would go as far as to say that anger is a poison you, yourself, drink. You put the cup to your own lips. Being angry inflicts extra damage on you above the whole reason you are angry in the first place and it paves the way to be angry all the time at everything. The ability to shake it off and move on is a life skill that it took me way too long to win the badge for but I'll tell you that not getting angry when E36 M3 is out of hand is both satisfying and an opportunity to poison someone else.
Step 1: Buy a motorcycle
Step 2: Park it just outside where you are made most angry
Step 3: When you feel anger, leave on your motorcycle
You are welcome.
Which is why I keep trying to point out that anger, and the constant amount around us, goes deeper than status, or jealousy, or race, or blame, or whatever.
For some reason, anger is a part of being a human. Some can control it pretty well, others really can't. Some like to be fed a constant barrage of information to keep them angry, others just want to keep away from it. But it's been around forever, and the ideas to control it are the most important. If you let anger get the best of you- damage will eventually come.
Boost_Crazy said:I think a lot of people really misunderstand who exactly the rich and the poor are. They are not static groups. Many people have been both rich and poor, sometimes more than once, in their lives. When most people say they want to be rich, I don't think they fully understand what that means, or how it is achieved. It's not a secret. Most rich in this country were not born rich. Becoming rich takes a combination of smarts, talent, hard work, luck, opportunity, and planning. Lots of ways to cook the recipe, but people who are not rich and do not plan to become rich tend to focus on the opportunity and luck parts of it. They also focus on those who have inherited wealth or amassed it quickly. They also tend to associate wealth with unfairness. But the truth is most people who have become rich did so in a very boring and undramatic manner. They lived modest lives within their means. They tried to avoid borrowing money. They paid themselves first. Not as sexy as a life of luxury, but that is how most of the rich got that way. Maybe not the 1%ers, but most of the others in the top 10%.
I'm not rich, yet. But I will be. I'm smart, and I work hard. I don't like risk, so I'm not the type to get rich quick. But I can plan and do math. I know how much I need to save and invest, little by little. It adds up quick, and the younger one starts, the better. I kick myself for not starting earlier. It does take sacrifice. You may have to work a job (or two) that you don't like for a bit, or skip that vacation that you want to take. I think it is short sighted to demonize the vast majority of the rich because they had the strength to make choices that many others had but passed on.
Rich is not a good goal. If you see how people pursue being rich, there is never, ever, going to be rich enough.
Happy, satisfied, and comfortable are better ones.
I like having a great retirement option, too. But I've seen far too many deaths at work to make that the total focus of my life. So I do my best to set myself up, but I'm not going to abuse myself with not taking breaks and enjoying life as often as I can get away with.
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