A Tale of Two Worlds: Life is Not Fair. A deep look at inherited wealth.

There are two major kinds of wealth that I would like to talk about in this post.  Self made wealth and wealth that is inherited.  You know, the kind that daddy passes on to a child that was lucky enough to be born with a silver spoon in his mouth.  Self made wealth often takes hard work, perseverance, and even some luck.  But not the same kind of luck that is needed to be plopped out of the womb into a  bourgeois family.

Many of us went to law school hoping to get self-made wealth.  College oftentimes delivers the idea that wealth can be obtained by virtue of education.  I know that when I enrolled I expected the big paychecks to come rollin' in.  Just like my brother-in-law's truck rolls into Philadelphia from the west coast every few weeks.  But unlike my brother-in-law, I was not handed a company.

This is a tale of two different worlds.  The world I live in is a world where one either works for their wealth or decides to remain poor for life.  If I want to do something with my life, I can only rely on myself to do something.  I can't rely on others.  My family literally has no wealth.  I funded (am funding) my college on student loans.  The same loans pay for 100% of my rent, 100% of my utilities, 100% of my food, 100% of my transportation costs, 100% of EVERYTHING.  In short, I don't rely on outside financial help at all at this point.  I have to be self-sufficient to survive.

But there is another.  A brother from another mother.  He was handed a trucking company at a tender young age and he now runs loads from one coast to another.  He's a big man (literally, he's huge), and he loves himself the ladies.  One of those ladies is my tender naive sister.  In fact, he loved that girl so much he went out and he married the lass.  Popped out a child to add to a fine collection of eight.  Now he's roamin' like a soldier out on the countryside, trying to maintain his overextended lifestyle, trying to prove the world that he's a big boy with a big toy (his truck). 

Now, there's a problem here.  He knows very little about wealth.  In fact, had his father not handed him that big truckin' company he'd be either sitting on his parents farm with a piece of grain hanging out of his mouth or he'd be hanging off the prison bars like a monkey in heat. 

Case in point: a few months back winter was raping the North Dakota landscape and his truck sat there, in some town nobody here has ever heard of, as he screamed at his wife over the phone.  Why now, was he so angry at the lass?  Did she do something to deserve his ire?  Did she run out and cheat on him?  Did she accuse him of straying too far from the gas pumps at the Flying J and picking up a lot lizard?  No, you see, the fella was a wee bit angry because he did not save any money for a break down.  And this was not the first, second, or even third time.  You see, when you are handed a company instead of working for it, chances are that you have no idea how to actually run it.  Now, this is not a universal truth, but it is often something that I have noticed in my short life.  You see, he had to call everyone he knew to borrow money to fix that truck up, so he could finish his run and return home for some fun.

Now, there was no lesson to be learned here, because it happened again.  Now, this individual lives far above his means.  There's no money left over in an account in case a truck maintenance problem arises.  Instead, the money is spent on every material possession one could hope to buy.  A TV that just has to compensate for something (at least he's fertile with nine babies, and talk of a 10th being planned for).  New vehicles are brought into the household like law students buy lattes.  Money is slung around like a banana slings a monkey.  Yet the company has nothing in case of an emergency.  He has no formal edumactaion, but he commands his own truckin' nation. 

Now, why do I write about this fine specimen of the business world?  Why do I bother spending my time talking about this person and the empire that his father dropped into his lap?  Is it to prove the notion that all of us already know - that life is not fair.  Or is it to paint a picture of a real life example of the difference between the kind of thinking of a person who inherits wealth and a person who knows how to run a company, but probably won't have the chance to?  Perhaps it's a little of both.  I thought it made for an interesting tale.  Something that perplexes me. 

As the educated class, we oftentimes think we are smarter than the rest.  We think that we have knowledge above the masses.  But the reality is that we don't always have the resources.  Nor do we have the money.  The brother-in-law has no college debt (although I suspect he's loaded with other kinds of debt), and the educated benefactors of society as we like to think of ourselves, are loaded with hundred$ of thousand$ of dollar$ worth of debt.  It's a crazy conundrum.  A vile reality.  It's just perplexing to the mind.

Yet, I wonder if the empire will be passed on to any of the fine nine.  Will it last that long?  Will the truck break down and will the company cease?  Will the marriage last (I kind of find myself doubting it.)  Does wealth bring happiness (here, I do not think so).  What is the point of it all?  For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole highway but lose his own truck? 

I really don't know the point of this blog entry, but I felt that it was somehow relevant.  Maybe I am wrong, but at least it has been written, and will give me something to look back on one day, in case my views should change. 

Pennywise: You Get the Life You Choose

You've given up don't even try
Pretty soon you'll stop asking why
What do you want to do with your life as it's fading?
It's all just a waste of time
Tell everyone you don't care
You know that
You're going nowhere
So now just sit there and stare as you're waiting
Complaining that life's not fair
You're going nowhere
Don't tell me heard all your lies
Told 'em all a thousand times
When you gonna realize
You're making up no alibis
The message that you
Abuse you get the life you choose
When did you give up and give in?
You say that you can't win
But when you've
Nothing to give and you're broken
You fight on until
The end your going to win
When you think the world is against you
And you think you'll never get through
But your conscience
Just won't let you
Just give up and give in
When all the walls close in around you
And the pressure all surrounds you
But your conscience
Just won't let you
Just give up and give in
You just won't try you wonder why
Well this is you life you won't get another try