On Perceptions and Broken Records

Because perception can be tricky sometimes.

"How rich you are depends on how rich you experience the world to be."
- David Cain

Oftentimes, we seem to think that it's the other way around. There's this concept called Parkinson's Second Law, which states that one's expenditures rise to meet one's income.

As much as I'd like to disagree and say that this is a silly notion, I can't. Additional responsibilities notwithstanding (especially in a Filipino point-of-view), I'm guessing that this applies to everyone who wasn't born with silver spoons in their mouths.

My folks used to tell my siblings and me that a common mistake that people do is to burn resources that they haven't earned yet - the proverbial counting-of-chickens-before-they-hatch trap. Earnest as that may sound (and to our silent protests), they were right on two fronts - first, that whatever we don't spend creates some sort of wiggle room for the future; and second, that the mere knowledge that we have this wiggle room is fulfilling in itself (even if we tend to blow said resources on dumber things anyway instead of actual emergencies or whatnot, but I digress).

That's not entirely the point of this post, by the way.

Sometimes, I wonder why there are folks who are seemingly (heck, visibly even) affluent but seem to have this air of misery around them. Conversely, the same wonder could be said for those who seem to have nothing (and get thrown under the bus every so often) but still carry on - despite the fact that life has thrown them everything but the kitchen sink.

At this point, I know I might seem like a broken record but sometimes I need to remind myself that it all boils down to whatever level of contentment we perceive to derive from things we do.

I've read somewhere (sorry for the lack of attribution, but it's probably Cracked) that humans are symbolic by nature and that entire cultures are based around them - rituals, superstitions, keepsakes, hobbies, and art, among others. I guess this somehow points back to the quote above.

Whether that's a well-kept secret or I'm too slow on these things, I'm not exactly sure.