Meaningful Returns

In life, as in the Internet, never read the comment section. Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, or ever.

The Internet comments are unsolicited, without context, and useless.

In life, the comments (sometimes spoken but often not) tend to be much more subtle and perhaps less dramatic, but still deserve exactly 0% of your attention or energy.

“Why aren’t you staying home with the kids?”

“People like us live in houses like these in this set of zip codes, how come you don’t?”

“People like us drive cars like these and replace them frequently; it’s odd that your car is 15 years old.”

“You deserve it; buy it.”

“You worked hard to get where you got, it’s not your responsibility to help THOSE people.”

The beauty of contentment–of defining for yourself what it means to be rich and then sticking to that definition–is that over time these comments simply go in one ear and out the other. Which is just as it should be.