I will never not be poor, so what does it matter if I don't pay a thing and a half this week instead of just one thing? It's not like the sacrifice will result in improved circumstances; the thing holding me back isn't that I blow five bucks at Wendy's. It's that now that I have proven that I am a Poor Person that is all that I am or ever will be. It is not worth it to me to live a bleak life devoid of small pleasures so that one day I can make a single large purchase. I will never have large pleasures to hold on to. There's a certain pull to live what bits of life you can while there's money in your pocket, because no matter how responsible you are you will be broke in three days anyway. When you never have enough money it ceases to have meaning. I imagine having a lot of it is the same thing. .Linda Tirado
About This Quote
The idea that "because I have a lot of money, it no longer has meaning" is a common one. This philosophy, also known as the "Meaningless Wealth" theory, is a form of psychological justification for the desire for wealth. The notion that having a lot of money can reduce one's motivation for making other decisions is a fairly widespread belief, and it is easy to see why people would believe something like that. In order for me to justify my decision to blow five dollars on Wendy's today, I would have to believe that the only reason I was spending five dollars today was because I had been saving five dollars from last week.
In reality, though, it's true that saving five dollars from last week does not guarantee me the ability to blow five dollars today. I could blow five dollars tomorrow if I didn't buy anything at all today or if I spent all my money for this week on something other than food. So why do people believe this? The answer lies in an implicit assumption – namely, that enough money cannot be spent to make you feel better about yourself regardless of what you do with it.
When your life is going well and you're earning more than you spend, it could be said that you're "self-indulgent"; when your life is going poorly and you're earning less than you spend, it can be said that you're "indulgent." But both of those statements are true and neither really has any bearing on your actual choice of behavior. You can be both self-indulgent and indulgent at the same time; you don't need to choose between them one way or the other. For example: If your friend comes over and asks if he can borrow sixty dollars for a bus ticket home because he's too poor to buy one himself, and then spends all of his money on beer and pizza instead of buying his ticket home – does that make him self-indulgent or indulgent? Neither! It makes him broke and irresponsible – but neither of those things make his behavior wrong or cause him any guilt.
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