We choose how we arrange our lives to make our dreams come true.
You and I don’t share the same fate as her. You don’t have to stay in a city that costs you 85% of your income just to pay rent. That woman doesn’t choose to live far away from clean water. I don’t have to haul gallons of water on my head for hours a day across rough terrain just to stay alive and keep my children alive. You must sacrifice friends who don’t understand the things that you do because yours is a lonely path that few people will ever dare to tread. You must sacrifice being able to visit your parents who gave you everything because the trip home is too expensive. You must sacrifice convenience and makeup and houses with indoor showers and being able to visit the doctor whenever you please. After all, we were chasing our dreams, and for your dreams to come true, you must sacrifice. Why did we choose it? Because it was what we could afford. What did we pay for this luxurious temple of wedded bliss? $500 dollars a month. He let me stay under the hot water the longest. We had to shower together, of course, because there was only 2 1/2 minutes of hot water available, and we couldn’t wait 3 hours for the tank to heat up again. Did I mention we got married in December? My first and fondest memories as a newlywed was my husband sprinting naked in the freezing cold out the back door to turn the shower on, so that when I got there it would be warmed up and I wouldn’t have to endure the icy water. My shower was in an old corn silo outside. There was insulation, some dry wall, a bathroom, a fridge, stove, and an outdoor shower. I lived with my husband in a shed, that our landlord had converted into a barn house shed thing. It wasn’t so much a house, per se, and I will say per se because what I’m about to tell you merits ridiculous terms for emphasis. We lived in a house that we could afford, for one thing. I still didn’t complain about it, because I chose to put myself in that place, much like you are choosing to put yourself 40 miles away from your place of employment in one of the most expensive cities in the world. We stayed at that rate for most of the year before we began to see our hard work invested in the business pay off. By my calculations, that is about what you were making ($1466.48 as cited in your article), except I didn’t have health insurance (couldn’t afford it at the time), oh, and also that sum was meant to provide for two people. We arrived at that sum by taking the charity bit right off the top and subtracting what we should have withheld for self-employed taxes from that amount. We had a few solid paying clients at the time, totaling $2,250 a month, before taxes.Īfter taxes, and after giving 20% to charity (yes really), that left us, 2 people, with $1,468.52 a month. (I got married the same day I graduated).
My first job after graduating with a Chemistry degree was as a self-employed operator of my company, Hüify, which I started with my newlywed partner and husband. Also I think you have better health insurance than me. I’m a woman working in the business sector. Hey Employee Who Wrote The Open Letter To Yelp’s CEO,Īnd honestly, if an employee at my company had publicly published the same musings about our leadership, I would have fired you too.
Originally posted on Medium: An Open Letter To The Whiny.
0 kommentar(er)
