So I moved back to my rural hometown after long years of building a career in the capital city, met up some friends I haven't seen for ages. Hanged out, got to my story and their first question was where did I buy my house. I told them I didn't, I'm in a rental property like I've always been. It was strange at first but then I realized I was their idol, the "rich guy who made it". Then got on to other topics. "So what car do you have?" I told em, I dont have a car. "Fuck it bro, at least did you travel the world?" - Not yet. With 3 questions and 3 answers, I made their whole world view collapse. "Are you even wealthy bro?" Yessiriam. I consider myself wealthy. What makes a man wealthy? Having options. If I'd like, I could buy the house, buy the car or travel the world. I didn't because it's not financially the right decision, at least it wasn't at that moment.
I guess it's a "blessing in disguise" that I'm living in a rural area instead of living in an urban area on in this case, a capital of a city or else, I might experience the same things that you've experienced, and I've been questioned the same questions that you've received.
The term "wealthy" is a very broad word, and depending on the person, we have different description of wealthy. You can have a lot of assets and consider wealthy. You can have a healthy life without any diseases whatsoever and you can call yourself wealthy as well. You can have lots of money in the bank and can call yourself wealthy as well. I mean being wealthy doesn't mean "You have a car", or "You have a house", or you are travelling the whole world already using your own money. For me, I consider myself wealthy already just because I'm not sick, or experiencing anything bad to my health at all.
There was a question a few days ago here, someone coined what could be the biggest problem with economies. This is one of them, for sure. People can't differentiate assets and liabilities. They think they own the house, they claim they own the car, and in the meantime they're in utter debt. People strive to take on liabilities instead of building wealth which consists of assets (favorably hard or income-generating assets). They discount their time, become corporate slaves just to keep up with the illusion of their lifestyles they ought to show to the outside world.
And I see this everywhere. The four of us in the room all came from the same school. Same age. Same opportunities. Three wheeling in heavy debt, trynna keep it up with side hustles. One with a positive balance who never needs to be a corporate slave again.
Well, that's the problem when you don't have or you have low financial literacy. They think of their house or their car as something that they can sell at a higher price in the future or they think that if they have either one of them, their value increases. We can't blame them if they grew having that kind of mindset, but the best thing that we can do is to educate them what really is an asset, which are assets, and which are liabilities as well.
As for being a corporate slave, I have nothing negative against them, but if you plan on staying as a corporate slave together then that's already a problem with you. I would rather be a corporate slave, but having a side hustle so that if I don't want to work anymore, at least I have the side hustle that I will be focusing more on.