Hollow envy
I went to Chess club again today for the first time in a while, and I was talking with someone afterwards that I didn’t really get to talk to the first time I met her. She is a psychologist with her own private practice therapy, and she is significantly older than me. She has two kids, both around my age. After the club, we kept talking for a while and covered several different topics. I also realized that my first impression of her as someone who is an older person that is established with their career in a highly educated field, was someone that is wealthy. She bought the food at the bar and tipped, and didn’t really care about the cost of it. Today when we went to 7-Eleven afterwards because she wanted to grab a drink, she spent $30 on scratchers and she said that this is her one vice that she occasionally does, and any money she wins she gives to the school. She also drove a nice BMW convertible. I was a little bit, surprised that she didn’t have another car. However, I don’t know why I expected that she had this as a fun car and drove something else also. I also guess I severely overestimated her wealth. And I don’t mean this at all in a mean way or anything like that, but I guess it was more just in my mind recognizing how I sometimes compare myself or think that I am accurately gauging someone else’s life to some extent in some metric, but I’m not that accurate. I think about one of my other friends that eats out at nice places, and goes on trips pretty frequently. But I also know that she doesn’t really save for a 401(k) because she doesn’t plan on retiring in this country. Also, I know that she cooks very often and I know that that saves money. I guess that I also overestimate how much money there is there, and I also think I underestimate my income. I think I could be better with money and spend less here and there. And I guess I just wanted to recognize the fact that I am sometimes envious to some extent of things that don’t necessarily exist.