Very true. I've noticed that wealthy people tend to suffer from a feeling of never having enough, but the rest of the world can't feed their appetite. Witness the antics of Diddy and the former president.

The biggest risk with not winning isn't poverty, but debt. My early losses set me up for a lifetime of exploitation making interest payments, which I didn't get out of until I paid my student loans off at 40. Millennials/Gen Y/Gen Z/Gen Alpha will have an even harder time, and I believe that we passed the point where debts could no longer be paid when the Housing Bubble popped in 2008. Which coincided with stuff like Peak Oil and the rise of post-Cold War authoritarianism. What we see today is theater, as the government makes no attempt to pay down the national debt, and moneyed interests stop efforts like student loan forgiveness by packing the Supreme Court. The wealthy and powerful are becoming parasites living on the working class's back. Which is incredibly tragic IMHO, as they had been stopped between WWII and 1980 before Reaganomics and the rollback of New Deal social safety nets under Clinton and GW Bush.

I had to let breaking even go as a concept. So I went through wage slavery, career death, mourning and rebirth of my own life as I stoically continued showing up with no proof that better days were coming during my healing and growth journey. But I did experience divine intervention during my destitution, as well as surrender and redemption, which I am eternally grateful for. My regrets are vastly outnumbered by the serendipitous blessings my soul received as my ego withered and died.

You're right that it's easier to live richly in poverty than it is to acquire any wealth at all or grow wealth. In fact, I think in these times it's a valid option. #vanlife and off-grid living can present more opportunities than competing with the Joneses.

A specific example of that is that I moved furniture between 2001-2003 and my income was $10/hr, about $1600/mo or $20,000/yr. My apartment's rent was $500/mo and my half was $250, so I could work about 3 days and cover rent. Which gave me time to leave work early with only 4-6 hours some days and take the winter off, but still have time to work on my startup. Dish Network and DSL were $30/mo each. Gas was $1-2. Used cars were $2000.

Contrast that with today's $1500 rent and stagnant wages. Now it takes 10 days (2 weeks!) to cover even half of rent. Food prices have tripled, Dish Network is $100-150/mo, DSL is $60-100. Car prices are in the stratosphere.

This outcome is a result of phantom tech. Stuff like innovation in entertainment and finance. Which drives costs up to maximize profit. So instead of offering the same internet speed at a lower price, we can only get faster internet at a higher price. Times everything.

Real tech is automation, economies of scale, etc. If we had real tech, the minimum wage would be perhaps $30 today. Rents and other fixed costs would decrease with inflation, not increase. So my furniture moving job would pay about $40-50/hr and I'd be able to make more than my $250 half of the rent in just 1 day.

Other countries like Finland experience this work-life balance and scratch their heads at US rugged individualism. The raw deal we receive is visceral now, it's lived. It takes a massive propaganda effort to hoodwink half the country into voting against its own self-interest to keep moneyed interests in charge.

No amount of discipline skipping Starbucks and avocado toast can counteract late-stage capitalism societal collapse.

Even though I think how bad things are is becoming apparent to most people, and I have tremendous empathy for young people entering adulthood today, it's not enough. We need a plan of action, positive outcomes that can be replicated at scale so that people have viable alternatives, and organizing for coordinated execution. The revolution is coming whether we like it or not, but it's up to us to manifest the reality where we live in a tech utopia instead of the tech dystopia that's coming if we merely survive.