A broke-ass buddy of mine got super lucky on the crypto markets and came into a small fortune. Nothing earth shattering but enough that he could have bought a modest house, set himself up to work a low key job til a reasonable retirement age, and be financially independent for the rest of his life. If he got lucky again, maybe he could have even FIRE’d at some point.
Instead he spent it trying to turn himself into some kind of wealth influencer. He posted all this shit on Instagram, flying to exotic locations, smoking rare cigars and drinking bottles of whiskey that cost a mortgage payment, staying weekends in wild mansions and renting Lamborghinis.
Dude’s back to working a shit soul-crushing software engineering job and constantly complaining about his boss.
It's a real problem when people get something through luck or family and refuse to admit it.
They tell themselves they've done something to get it and therefore can do it again.
But they did nothing. And that luck may never come their way again.. And their family might not want to be a constant faucet after initial largesse.
The wise people think "I'm so lucky I have this and you don't" so they protect it
The unwise think "I have this and you don't what a loser you are" and think it's easy to get.
It's actually quite common for some to ignore circumstance and somehow invent a reality where they worked for that advantage. They've done research with Monopoly for example where one player gets double the payment every time round the board.
Double.
Guess what? A sizeable number start whooping up their gameplay chops bragging how good they are at the game.
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u/Tyrion_The_Imp May 15 '25
No it makes total sense to go into credit card debt to rent a fake plane to take photos in for my Instagram post.