I am Jealous

[Meliodas]

Let me tell you my story ,

I am an 18 year old and i had very good grades throughout high school and i can get the best of the best colleges , but few months ago , i chose not to take admissions in the prestigious colleges because of the heavy debt it would incur on my family . My family is not that rich , so if i had to go to a good college , my family would have had to take a huge loan from  the bank , but i thought that , it would be a very bad financial decision for my family , so i decided not to take the loan . Now I am not in a really great college , and honestly the people in my college arent very motivated to do someting with their life and that doesn't upset me since i am intrinsically motivated and I hadn't even noticed until someone pointed this fact out to me .

The thing is today one of my friends , who is very rich and he is studying in ucal berkeley , called me . He was all like "You have wasted all your talent , you could do so much " etc and started bragging about how his college mates were people from  big family businesses and sons and daughters of some famous people , and how  my college was dirt cheap and people there were unmotivated nuts and all . Since i am kind of embarrassed of my family situation , i didnt tell him . Then he started bragging about how people from his college were making more than a million dollars a year etc.

I told him that money is not my highest value and i would be happy as long as i have enough to pursue my life purpose , spirituality and health and little bit of luxuries (maybe about  >$150000/year salary US equivalent on the east coast) . I told him about how I want to pursue other things than money like relationships , spirituality and different types of health regimes etc and how i want to live my life purpose for fulfillment rather than earn like a million dollars a year. 

As soon as i told him about all this , he was like "Thats all nonsense  , you will realise how much money is important , that is all nonsense , you should be more competitive and have higher standards " and he also told me that even a million dollars is small amount of money and how he wants to be a billionaire by the time  he is 45 . Then i told him that i know money is very important , but his need for so much is just greed and what not . He then got very angry about how i was belittling him even though i could never see the happiness that money could buy and soon he started calling me poor and what not so I hung up .

Soon After I got thinking and thought that i could go to best colleges and i did not and i got jealous . I am pretty sure that i can land a high paying coding job , since i already have a good portfolio .

But still i got jealous listening about he is roaming around with the elites and i am still in a normal community . I am also jealous about how he brags about his college and how I have nothing to brag about . 

I want to ask , did i make the right decision ? was i right not to go to a good college because my family had to incur a huge debt , they are not capable of paying (and also other family and money issues)? would i have something extraordinary had i gone to a good college?

[Average Investor]

Those expensive colleges are literally a scam. If your not planning on becoming a doctor or lawyer, then your college is really not going to be that critical. You can get a much better education by just buying $3 books off ebay with some serious drive to learn. He does have a point though with those kind of connections. You could literally become a billionaire just by having the right connections. However, I would not place all of my bets on just finding the right connections, but it sure does help.

Your friend sound very heavy into spiral dynamics stage orange. Probably more on the toxic side. You really don't need any more than like ten million to live a comfy life without worries of money. If your friend just endlessly chases money his entire life, then he will have a rude awakening if he actually does reach the billionaire status of how meaningless it is. Most billionaires did complete college, but some of the most notable ones like Steve Jobs had dropped out. I am sure if you had some serious drive and were placed around the right people at a college it would help. However, it doesn't sound like your goals involve being a billionaire, so I would not worry about it. 

I went to a local college myself and never complete the degree. It was actually super valuable to me because I tried out a bunch of career paths. I did some automotive and all sorts of classes that had me try out different stuff. I was at college and had been running my own little hustles on the side. I realized that I wanted to go into business from doing all of that. That was really worth any amount of money I had paid there. I guess my lesson here is just to maximize what you have. Don't worry about what some other kid is getting. The thing that is more valuable is your drive and desire to learn and better yourself. 

It might be tempting to be envious of your friend. It is good that you recognize those emotions. However, you can live a much better life, that many would envy. Just the sheer fact that you have stumbled into this personal devlopment work will put you miles ahead of this guy. He will probably be chasing his tail for years just trying to get rich. 

https://youtu.be/UF8uR6Z6KLc

This is one of my favorite videos of all time. I recommend you listen to this. 

[Tim R]

Your "friend" is a fool.

2 hours ago, Meliodas said:

so I hung up .

?

2 hours ago, Meliodas said:

would i have something extraordinary had i gone to a good college?

Wrong question. Nobody knows what we would have or who we would be, had we done things differently in our lives. 

Coming to terms with that and realizing that it's a meaningless problem is part of growing up. 

 

I know some people here and even Leo might not agree with what I'm saying, but I think a life that is "not extraordinary", but in which one has become wise enough to be content with how things are, is far greater than a life which we expect to be extraordinary and which we wouldn't be content with if it didn't turn out to be "extraordinary" (whatever that means...). You know what I mean? 

[happyhappy]

@Meliodas yes ! u made the right choice IMO! 

 

your friend is some stage orange arrogant dude who likes to think that money will make you be at the top of the world...(which is nonsense)

sooo, these folks have no understanding of higher stages of the spiral and i can clearly see that you have outgrown them!  see, you even thought about ur family right? 

my advice would be to stay away from low conscious folks...

 

[Yarco]

7 hours ago, Meliodas said:

I am an 18 year old

i am jealous

you've still got the most valuable thing of all

[something_else]

I did Computer Science at uni (UK, not US) and went to what would be considered a good university. We don't quite have the same elitism with uni here as you do in the US though

However not a single thing I learnt in uni was actually useful when I got my first software engineering job. Like none of it. And I would have learnt the same things at what would be considered a crappy uni. I did lots of personal projects which taught me far more

The thing I regret most about uni was not taking advantage of what a great social opportunity it is. Focus on building your social skills up if you feel they are subpar. Join societies, groups, clubs, whatever the US equivalent of those things are

In a sense your friend is right, it would have been good to make connections with some of those high status people if you could but it's not the end of the world really. Especially with how expensive college is in the US 

[Preety_India]

You mean you're jealous of shitty colleges lol.