A Fictitious Reality

How many people do you know who have changed economic classes?

Going into my early childhood years, I could think of no one who had moved, one way or the other, from where they started with their parents money to where they are now with their own.  A friend of mine came from a wealthy family of lawyers.  He is now a wealthy lawyer.  Another friend came from a wealthy family of politicians.  He is now a wealthy politician.  I came from a middle class family of teachers.  I'm now middle class (my wife says we're middle class, I FEEL like we're lower class, but I realize that I was just able to play paintball with my 16-year-old yesterday, and lower class folks probably don't have the expendable resources to play paintball at all, so I'm gonna have to agree with my wife that we're middle class... despite my lower class feelings).  I also had friends who had parents who were teachers, ministers, scholars, all of whom were not wealthy.  And those kids grew up to be not wealthy.

So it stands to reason that the statement "if you work hard enough, you can become rich in America" either isn't true, or a lot of people just don't want to work.  And just to give you an idea of the caliber of people I'm talking about, my graduating high school class had one valedictorian, and three salutatorians.  All four of those kids came from middle class families, and all four of them continue to be middle class. 

I only know three people who have changed economic classes since I've known them.  All of them are actors.  All of them started at low class status.  All of them got contracts to perform on television.  And that's when all of them became rich.

I feel a little consumed with finances lately.  I believe it's because I've found what I want to do, and it isn't a job.  Most of my life, I've wanted to be an actor.  Now, I just want to sit with my wife.  I think I could be very, very content to just lay in a bed for the rest of my life with my wife and snuggle.  And no nothing else.  But that job pays for shit.  So I gotta get a job that will make me independently wealthy, so I can quit my job and lay around with my wife.  I think that's where my preoccupation with money is coming from lately.  If I could simply lay in a bed with my wife, I'd be good.  And that's hard to do when I'm working 12 hours a day.

Anyway, I thought it was interesting that not many people in my world have moved much in the whole economic scheme of things.  I would have imagined that more people would have become rich.  Then again, it's only recently that I'm really starting to question the fictitious reality that I've been told to believe in.  The fictitious reality we've all been told to believe in.