Inflation, recession, covid restrictions, rental income decline, health decline due to aging
.. are some of the common “stressors” that have not become my stressors, because they affect many people around me more seriously.

Q: What’s special about long commute? Why do I suffer so much while others don’t?
A: 49 out of 50 of my peers can tolerate it better than I can, just as in an economy seat on a long flight.

k_deflation

Past title: covid19 recession: feel`richer@unchanged income

During the covid19 recession, roughly half the Singapore nationals [1][2] experienced job loss or partial loss of income. This made my family feel richer than before the pandemic — a paradox because in theory, without income growth we feel richer only during deflation (price fall). Now I think this theory is inconsistent with how people actually feel — People feel richer when they rise relative to perceived peers, regardless of inflation/deflation, or income rise/fall

Therefore, my sense of rich/inferior is mostly driven by peer comparison or FOMO , although livelihood and Fuller wealth is driven by cost level vs (work+nonwork) income level

[1] I will not focus exclusively on the middle class.
[2] Pandemic-proof sectors like tech, healthcare … employ lots of foreigners

— case: real estate inflation: am poorer even though my rental cost increased minimally
— case: globalization reducing min cost@basicHealthy Food but only a small percentage of the people I know actually say they feel richer thanks to globalization.
Jolt: So deflation doesn’t make us feel richer, for most of us, most of the time.

The paradox of smartphone .. Even though globalization leads to concrete, verifiable life-enhancing deflation [in basic food, clothing, bicycle, toy, basic electronics etc], the ordinary person would feel impoverished if she only has a school-supplied (or pre-owned) old or slow smartphone! Even if this phone is actually faster than a new phone, she may still feel impoverished because it looks outdated ! Vanity?

So peer comparison rather than this “deflation” is the real determinant of perceived poverty. By a certain age like 45 or 65, we don’t care so much about exclub or FOMO, and we can afford to ignore the smartphones (and other fancy, new stuff) that our cohort have.
I think this is a form of mellowing up, a form of let-go.

— (shocking) example: when I receive a modest bonus (like SGD 10k), I feel inferior and poor iFF I know my coworkers get bigger bonuses. In theory, a $10k handout ought to make us feel richer.

— example: in a WallSt bank, all contractors were forced to take 2-week furloughs at year end, but luckily I was spared. Nevertheless, I was unable to work on Christmas and New Year holidays, and lost billing, but I felt richer in comparison to other contractors.