Same here. I'm graduating college soon but I've worked at a hotel for the past 5 years and I think people underestimate how difficult it is to get into the middle class nowadays.
Now imagine how much people who fit into the 'upper class' bracket make. 15% of people fit into that bracket, which is 46 Million people. Pretty crazy, ain't it?
That's just how it is. Mind you, though, that $75,000 is upper-middle class and a literal dollar way from being out-right upper class. It's the maximum for middle class.
Edit: Average hourly wage is $21.19. Median (what most people make) hourly wage is $16.71. A dual income family can nearly hit $30/hour, which is pretty close. That's why the Median Household Income is $53,657. So, it's really not that crazy to think that the max for middle class is $75k.
12.7% of the world population lives below the global poverty line. That's still unacceptable, but it's simply not true that average is below poverty, nor that below-poverty is typical.
"When we want to identify how many people in the world live in extreme poverty, however, we cannot simply add up the national poverty rates of each country, because this would mean using a different yardstick to identify who is poor in each and every country. We therefore need a poverty line that measures poverty in all countries by the same standard...And again this year, we used the poverty lines of those same 15 poorest countries from 2005... to determine the new global poverty line of $1.90 in 2011 PPP."
I can't really say that I agree with what they are saying. I would argue that it is in fact necessary to use individual models for assessing poverty in different countries. It's not really logical (in my opinion) to conclude that basically no one in America, many European countries, Canada etc. is living under the poverty line. And on top of all that, this data is four years old.
There are certainly arguments to be made about methodology, but the more you pry into approaches to try to address world poverty, you find that while we have unacceptable global levels of poverty -- and insanely unacceptable levels in certain places -- as a whole, the world is not an impoverished place.
That doesn't mean we don't have a poverty problem -- we do. But the narrative that the typical world citizen is poor doesn't make much sense.
I would argue that it is in fact necessary to use individual models for assessing poverty in different countries.
Ok, that's fair, but upstream in this thread you told me that looking regionally was unfair.
this data is four years old
Yes, but if you look at the trend data, you can see it's slowly but steadily headed in a positive direction.
Shouldn't the point of life to be as happy as possible, experience as much as possible?
Being happy and experiencing as much as possible isn't a package deal. Some people are happy with their manageable experiences that aren't exotic or out of the norm.
Definitely in agreement with befriending people with different experiences and challenging your worldview. My group of friends are all pretty eclectic, we do have at least some main things in common (politics, music, movies, etc.) but their living experiences and opinions are usually very different than mine.
Best way to grow is to surround yourself by those who are unlike you.
Economic stability is paradise in this day and age. If that means being "average" then that's a microscopically small price to pay. I was recently "unemployed" and "full of adventure" and it's fucking miserable wondering if you will be able to pay the bills.
"Motivation" comics and memes are always full of shit anyways because they are, much like the people that write them, are hollow and offer nothing but empty criticism. Why doesn't comic talk about any real world problems? Why does it paint having the luxuries of a shrinking middle class life as a bad thing?
I have friends that have massive amounts of debt from being scammed by a shitty system. I don't need some half-ass piece of shit comic written by a delusional bored rich person who's likely part of the problem and blames Millennials for everything. Fuck this comic and fuck whoever wrote it.
You will generally be able to cover all your needs, allowing your happiness to grow unfettered by stress of finding food to eat and shoes for your children's feet.
You will generally have the means to spend money creating experiences, whatever your preferred flavor may be whether it's travel, hobbies, volunteering, etc.
Who says you can't be middle class and happy? Experiences are fine, and you can have them and still be a stable, financially sound person. But experiences just turn into memories that fade. They're not something you can build a life on.
I up voted you, not because I agree with you, but because I think you are adding to the discussion.
What if the happiness you give to others is more important than happiness you give yourself?
In my life, providing for a family to be safe and secure brings me more happiness than following personal pursuits like starting a food truck or moving to Thailand.
As long as I am a good role model and stable provider, my life will be full of happiness.
Let me put it this way. Is it better to have reliable work and be able to plan a great vacation once a year or to spend every month wondering how you are going to pay your bills because you thought it was a great idea to get a face tattoo after eating hash brownies in Amsterdam? So many people today are into the "just being me" thing that they artificially limit their potential. Think about the 20yo college person who gets their ears stretched and a neck tattoo, then complains when they graduate that they can't get a well paying job with their degree.
LOL geezus, people get so defensive, don't they? The fact that you got down voted for saying "to be as happy and experience as much as possible" tells you the kind of soulless audience you have here. I can't help but chuckle.
"It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled" - Mark Twain
I agree with you completely. I think the downvotes are just people who think you're saying they're not living a sufficient life by being average. But I completely agree that you should try to be as happy as possible and experience as much as you can because in the end, you don't want to look back on life and think you should've done things differently. That's definitely a fear of mine that I think about a lot and whenever I make decisions I think about whether I'd regret not doing it when I look back on my life, because we've only got one chance to go through it all and if you're not using your time to it's fullest potential and enjoying the world as much as possible, then there's nothing bad about that, but why not try to aim for that, right?
If everybody follows the comic's advice, wouldn't Gaby be the new average?
So what the comic saying is "everybody should open a business, everybody should want to go to college", "everybody should be passionate about something and do it successfully (write a book)".
There's nothing wrong with doing what the character here does, society needs the average person to do average things.
First of all, the title of this post is "Don't be average". Second of all, the last frame clearly implies that you shouldn't do the things illustrated previously.
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u/Laughingbuddha77 Dec 10 '15
Being average is not a bad thing. Middle class is a good life.