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Met up with an old buddy for lunch today, let's call him John. He told me about an interesting/sad interaction between him and his mom. (he said it was okay to share the story)
Background of my friend.
- Asian, 38 y/o
- Wife, two toddlers
- Owns a house in Van.
- He has a commission-based job, if he doesn't work, he doesn't get paid
- Makes ~$130k annual (household income just under $200k)
He was at his parent's house and his dad asked him if he was working the following Monday since it's not a stat and John said he took the Monday off. In fact, he took every long weekend off the entire year and made the comment jokingly that life's too short to work any long weekends.
His mom chimed in and said she doesn't understand why John's wasting his potential. She said that it's their fault that he's so lazy and complacent because they gave him a good life and provided too much for him. Apparently, in his mom's eyes, he's just lazy and has no motivation to be more than he is. They did help him out with the down payment for his house.
John stressed that he would rather work less and spend more time with his family than work harder and grind to make more money. His mom said he's still young and he should be working harder to provide a better life for his family. She pointed out that he has two kids, how are they going to have a good life if he continues just doing what he does now. She said he needs to work more now when he's young and when he's older he can rest.
Then the mom said that she was disappointed in him because he's not motivated and that she expected more from him. He said that comment hurt him.
John admits he could work way harder and make way more money, but his work-life balance right now is too good. But, now he's questioning whether he is in fact getting complacent and if his mom is actually right?
I told him that our parent's generation is only focused on making money, working hard, and getting to the final destination later in life, whereas, our generation values the journey and puts more focus on experiences over money. This is probably because our generation is more privileged than our parents. I'm thinking his mom is salty that John hasn't really seen struggle the way she struggled growing up and that's not sitting right with her.
In any case, he's kind of fucked up right now because he's contemplating his whole damn life. I mean, his life is pretty damn cushy right now, we both agreed on that.
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