Let's talk about the middle class.
Let's talk about how 'middle' it really is.
Let's talk about the intense budgeting that's required to keep that 'middle class' label.
Let's talk about tough choices.
Tough choices like whether you can afford to eat out?
Tough choices like whether you can afford the expensive toilet paper?
Tough choices like if you should go to the expensive hair salon or the cheap one?
Those tough choices?
No.
Those aren't that hard to make.
Tough choices are deciding which bills should be paid first because you can't pay them all.
Tough choices are whether to pay to fix your car or leave the dangerous malfunction alone and still have electricity.
Tough choices are when you chose between buying Christmas presents or paying rent.
But there are other tough choices.
Let's talk about depression.
Let's talk about disposable income and how a lack of it is shown to have an impact on your overall happiness and stress levels.
Let's talk about people who don't have income at all.
Let's talk about their reliance on other people to survive.
Let's talk about culture putting that burden on the middle class instead of billionaires.
Let's talk about our resentment about it.
Why do we resent it?
Because we fight every day to keep ourselves out of the lower class.
Because we're one lost job, one car accident away from joining them.
Because the little guy is expected to help the littlest guy while the biggest guys stand on the top pretending like they didn't get there by stepping on the backs of their peers.
Let's talk about how easy it is to drop down a peg.
Let's talk about a system that can fire you, without notice and after working you to the bone, and leave you unemployed.
Let's talk about the month after you lose that job, when you've used all your savings and you can't afford to pay the bills.
Let's talk about the real possibility that a well-to-do family could become homeless in less than a year.
Let's talk about how hard you worked at a job that didn't care if you never got a lunch break.
Let's talk about how hard you worked to fix up your resume and how many convoluted job applications you filled out.
Let's talk about the stigma surrounding unemployment and the belief that after all that work, you just didn't work hard enough.
Let's talk about disability.
Let's talk about my dad.
Let's talk about a high-ranking computer programmer losing his vision.
Let's talk about a massive pay cut.
Let's talk about the humiliation of going back to school for something that doesn't involve sight, in a field you don't have 30+ years experience in and starting back at square one.
Let's talk about how stupidly easy it is to fall off the ladder.
Let's talk about a man who lost his career and his sight in the span of a decade.
Let's talk about life.
