Michael: “Francesca is my oldest brother’s daughter. He died many years ago, and ever since I’ve felt much more of a father than an uncle. I love her very much. I’m pleased and impressed that you had the thought to come to me before going on with your plans. It shows me that you’re a considerate man, and will be good to her. What are you studying in college?”
Gardner: “My major is Fine Arts, sir.”
Michael: “How will Fine Arts support your new wife?”
Gardner: “It’s embarrassing to say, sir, but I’m a major stockholder in the family corporation.”
Michael: “Never be embarrassed of your wealth. This recent contempt for money is still another trick of the rich to keep the poor without it. Of course I give you my blessing. Let’s set the wedding soon…it will be my pleasure to give the bride away.”
So what happens if you find yourself in a low-paying job? What happens if God calls you to a low-paying job? The above quote is from the Godfather Part 2, and the words of Gardner always stuck with me. He was choosing a career track that pays very little, but had another source of income to help with that. I love Michael’s response. But there are definitely two sides to this coin, so you’ll have to hear me out before judging what I have to say.
Back in high school, I was part of a cohort of Christian “smart kids”. We were the non-partying folk, the cross necklace folk, the goody twoshoes folk. We studied, did our homework, were academically inclined, and could be real asses from time to time. But you see, something was odd. We all chose low-paying professions. I wanted to be a writer. Our Valedictorian wanted to be an English teacher, and our Salutatorian went to any ivy league school to become a Latin teacher. Both were a part of the cohort. I could give you many other examples. Now, there’s nothing at all wrong with being a teacher, but there was a distinct lack of wealth-chasing by all the Christians. One non-Christian guy in several of my AP classes liked to party and hung around that crowd of people, but he had started taking Cisco networking classes, and could probably have walked into a high-paying job out of high school. I woke up to this several years into college, where it was like, “Hey, if I’m such a ‘smart’ guy, why am I not the one making good money?” Well, sometimes smart people can be stupid, and I had an inflated ego from my academic work. I had really strong aptitude for web design, and a few years later entered software development.
There is so much anti-wealth bias among Christians. It’s horrible! One friend on facebook asked how he could earn a six-figure income. The first people to respond had only sarcastic responses. This was so sad for me to read. Drug dealer, corrupt politician, evil business owner. I’m thinking, “Spend ten years in software development? Become a CPA or corporate Accountant? Be a small business owner? Pastor a really large church? Become an engineer?” There are so many ways to make large amounts of money, if you really need to. But those friends of his I think were a small snapshot of how many people see the world: only the evil have money. Everyone else is a victim. I get so incredibly tempted to reveal my own salary because people might be surprised how not impressive it is. It is probably more than what most people I know earn, so I really don’t want to create a game of comparison, but I also know so many who, if not individually, then as a couple, make way more than I do. I just want people to know how easy it is to build wealth when you’re making decent money and living below your means. Sometimes I’m afraid of sounding arrogant, but I have to keep pushing forward. I’ve always needed a bit of “tough love” in my life to get the real message across, and it spills out in how I write about these things. “Wake up, dumbass! Stop pissing your money away!”
So now, there’s the other side of the coin. Some people are called to low-wage jobs. If God is calling you to a low-wage job, there’s usually a really good reason. It also may require a considerable amount of faith. One of my close friends was a missionary kid in the South Pacific. His dad left a well-paying software development job to become a missionary, and their whole family lived exclusively off the support of others during that time. The founders of the company I am writing open source software for left the United States to work in one of the poorest countries in the world (Nepal), where even their successful business venture is probably not making nearly as much money as they could be making here. I have tremendous respect for what they are doing, and their business has been God’s light to a whole host of employees who have suffered many things in life.
One friend at my last job was forced by his parents to get a bachelor’s degree in Business. He hated it. Every bit of it. He got into computers and began to love programming, and really wishes he had done Computer Science instead. But his parents were of the snobbish sort who refused to let their child go into anything that didn’t have “the highest” of returns. Screw those people. His hatred was evident, though, and they changed their position after that, but it was too late for him to major in something he actually enjoyed.
I do believe there are a lot of misguided kids going off to college with completely unrealistic expectations. I got my degree in Anthropology and I loved it, but you can basically get the same education with $500 worth of books and access to intelligent friends who enjoy talking.
It’s usually people who are making good money but don’t know how to save any of it who look down on low-income workers. They have this idea that “those people” must be impoverished to survive, but really, many low-income earners are damn smart – that’s how they survive on a low income. Duh! You could even potentially argue that higher incomes exist to compensate for lack of intelligent behavior. Instead of understanding their problems (fixing their cars, cooking their own meals), the rich often just throw money at these things to make them go away, because they can’t do so themselves. I think Jacob Fisker of ERE fame would actually take this position. I’m not saying I necessarily believe this, but I do believe there is something compelling about this argument. The rich often become rich because they need to be rich. The wealthy often become wealthy precisely because they don’t need to be rich. Riches and wealth are different. Rich is about quantity, wealth is about mindset. It’s probably not necessary to adhere too strictly to these definitions, but you get the idea.
I don’t believe that God has an opinion on economic systems. I believe God has operated throughout history and continues to operator through any and all economic systems. It’s not like our current form of capitalism is “the chosen one”, and therefore, hearken ye toward production! I believe there are some really great things about capitalism, but it obviously has flaws because *gasp* it’s human. So it happens that some “jobs” are very much “underpaid” because economic values will never be able to match God’s values. We are not worth the sum of our productivity. We all have value based on Jesus’ actions on the cross. However, this is not, and cannot, be expressed economically. It’s a completely different value system. But what this means is that there is nothing wrong with not making much money.
“But! But! Aren’t we supposed to provide for our families?”
This is why I love having majored in Anthropology. Everything can be compared to indigenous life. Way back in the day, there was no expensive childcare. There were no realtors to suck your money away when you buy a dwelling, no fancy gadgets, no ‘how-to’ manuals, no cars to take you to your job so you could earn money and buy everything else. Groups of people took care of each other, and you learned your natural surroundings to extreme competence. Sure, there was higher infant mortality, fighting, and lower life expectancy. But the point is that all of these things were possible, and human physiology has not dramatically changed, so all of these things are technically still possible.
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Live close to work. You could bike. Or cook your own food. Or grow some plants in your backyard. Walk to the grocery store and forego the gym membership. Don’t have the money to send little junior to soccer camp? Then don’t send little junior to soccer camp! This doesn’t make you a bad parent, what makes you a bad parent is setting a poor example for your kids by buying things for them that you can’t afford. For fuck’s sake, people. You can play soccer in an empty field with a pig’s bladder and some street friends. Everything has been commoditized, and everybody believes they need these commodities.
“I need a house!” I get it, I feel the same way. So learn how it was assembled and learn how to maintain it. “I need a car!” I get it, I feel the same way. So learn at least the very basics of how it works. Set money aside for repairs instead of buying a new iPhone.
You don’t need granite countertops. You don’t need a third garage space. You don’t need a 60″ plasma screen. If you have a ton of money and want these things, sure, go for it. But you don’t need them. For me, personally, I decided I’d rather “get ahead” in life by building wealth instead of treating myself to all of things under the sun. I treat myself to a few things, but I know the excitement from everything would wear off quickly and leave me stranded with nothing to show for all of my work.
What people mean when they worry about having enough money is that they want enough money to buy ALL OF THE THINGS. This is human nature because we’re raised believing we need these things. We don’t.
</rant>
Now, I do think “getting ahead” is more difficult when your base expenses are closer to your earnings. The more money you make over these basic expenses, the more opportunity you have to build wealth. It’s insane how much of a difference $10k/year can make here. Most people just inflate their level of spending when they earn more, but there’s still no arguing that the opportunity to build wealth is greater when you make more, the only difference is that you just have to deliberately decide to live below your means. It’s not so fun when this isn’t an option.
I have a lot of sympathy for my other friends here in Denver because housing and rent are through the roof, and this is the greatest cost and the greatest barrier people face toward living a normal life. But this doesn’t mean that it’s wrong to chose a career path that doesn’t pay much. I don’t believe in glorifying the low-paying career, or thinking of yourself as better (as I once did when pursuing a writing career) for choosing something “noble” over something that “pays”, but there isn’t some moral requirement for you to make as much money as possible. There also isn’t some moral requirement to spoil your children with middle class baubles.
The Role of Strategy
I used to play a game called Xenosaga. I love Xenosaga. In fact, I’ve been going back through it for the first time in ages. If you know the game well, there are certain key points where you can strategically “grind” and dramatically boost your main character Shion’s stats, giving you an advantage in pretty much every battle. You use tech points to level up, and by being the only character during certain parts of the game, the tech points earned in battle are not divided among other characters. So you can essentially max Shion out with a fraction of the effort required during the other parts of the game.
Oh, RPGs. This is so much like real life, where strategy can get you way ahead of the game. Most people are not shooting for strategy, they just want to brute force everything. Go to college, get a job, get married, have kids, buy new cars, send your kids to expensive colleges so they can get “good” jobs and then brute force their own lives. Some people win various lotteries (genetic, familial, upbringing, natural talents) that allow them to easily brute force the various levels of life. But when people don’t win these, they are often still trying to follow the brute force path recommended by society. I say screw that. I’ve got better things to do than full-time grinding.