Poor but Cheerful

Here is another article that my mother sent me before my trip to India.  The subtitle of the article is "a day spent on a mountain of trash in the Philippines inspires a young man to ponder the meanings of privilege and deprivation".  This person's experience certainly supports the fact that a big part of how we evaluate our own situation, circumstances, and happiness is in comparison to other people.  If none of the people around us have much, we are content without those things also.  Where problems start coming in is when others around me seem to have more and I - by comparison - have less.  In business school, I remember having a conversation with one of my classmates where I noted how lucky we were.  Most of us would make more money per year than >99% of the world population.  In response, my classmate told me that he didn't compare himself to 99% of the world population.  He only compared himself to the people at HBS (and would only be happy if we did better than the rest of us).  A sad commentary on the human condition.