Focusing on what matters....

When you work for a private college with a fair number of wealthy students, it's a regular occurrence - I leave the office or the gym, get to the parking lot and walk to my 2 year old compact pickup truck - and notice that I'm parked next to some really nice new car, usually with out of state plates and a college parking permit. Escalades, beemers, Audis, Benzes, ect. I always feel like a failure - here I am, 6 years out of college with an MBA, and 19 year olds are driving around in the car I've always wanted, but could only afford if I stopped buying food, sold my house, and lived in the car.

I don't know why I think this. It's fairly obvious that a college student driving a $60,000 ride probably had it paid for by their parents. I may not be a member of the lucky sperm club, but it's pretty hard to blame anything I've done for that.

But more importantly, I'm not sure why owning a nice car is something I care about. If I look at times of my life where I've been happy in the last 10 years, there is no direct relationship between the vehicle I was driving at the time and my level of happiness.

More importantly, there are a lot of things I should be more grateful than I am about. My truck may not be fancy, but it runs and is paid off. I'm in decent health, in far better physical shape than I was a few years ago, have a reasonably secure job, a safe place to sleep at night (even though I'm probably upside-down in it), parents who are still alive, together, and with whom I have a good relationship.

There are things about my life I'm not happy about - mostly being single and having pretty much no social life, and not being as comfortable as I would like to be in social situations. I'm still trying to figure out how to change this, but I can guarantee that an Escalade on dubs would not be a long-term solution to this problem.

I really do need to learn to be more grateful for what I have, and less envious about what I don't.