It brings us no joy (see also: all the joy) to remind people that John Lennon was a domestic abuser and that Hitler loved animals, Disney, and art.
We're not out here trying to be contrarian just for funsies, though.
One Reddit user asked:
What historical figure is completely overrated and why?
And the responses perfectly illustrate why we think that knowledge is important. Removing someone's humanity makes it easy to cast them as solely heroes or villains. In the movies it's easy to tell who the good guy is and who the bad guy is, but the real world doesn't work that way.
People are capable of great acts and great art while also being terrible people. Terrible people are capable of creating beautiful things and doing good work.
If we can't learn to see humans as humans, we keep looking for "bad guys" and "villains" and miss the reddest red flags because that's not what a "bad guy" looks like in our imaginations. It lets us idolize awful people because they did that one thing we like.
So let's talk about the humanity in our historical heroes.
Imagine
John Lennon was a wife-beater and an arrogant a$hole to everyone. Pretty much the entire reason why the Beatles broke up.
He abused his son as well as his wife. Yet people think he was so great because he stood on stage and said "Yeah, peace maaan." He also spoke out against materialism, yet completely embraced how rich he became. I absolutely agree with you in case you couldn't tell.
- B_9_M_7
Thank you! That guy cheated on both of his wives, beat them, left his first son with no financial support for the majority of his life and all of his will went to Yoko and his second son, as well as being a massive fcking hypocrite.
Not Throwing Away His Shot
Alexander Hamilton.
The musical touches upon some of his downsides but it also made him seem grandiose too much, and glazed over most of his objectionable aspects.
Yes, he cheated on his wife, and that's bad, but he also:
- advocates for a constitutional monarchy
- firmly believed that only the wealthy should have a say
- looked down on those less fortunate, despite coming from less fortunate circumstances himself
- advocated for corporate interests and motivations in government decisions
Basically by today's standard Hamilton was the typical modern political fat cat clawing for more money and happily supporting big business meddling in government affairs if doing so would benefit him personally.
He also made his money by marrying into one of the biggest slave-trading families around, and then helped them expand that business even further. Yet, people keep telling me Hamilton was 'against slavery'.
Tesla
Controversial opinion:
Tesla.
Dude was a brilliant engineer and was in many was screwed out of his place in history by Edison and historians. But the pendulum swung too far the other way. He's made out to be some steampunk wizard, who could have provided free energy to all the world.
Tesla was also a misogynist who supported eugenics and was crazy. Also he believed stuff that was just plain wrong, like alcohol was the elixir of life but caffeine was some terrible poison.
Mother Knows Best?Â
Mother Teresa was a narcissistic sociopath and big on Munchausen by Proxy. She kept her patients suffering because she knew it made her look good, she was obsessed with the "power", and knew it was easier to convert the dying to Christianity than it was to convert someone who was getting better.
She purposely caused and prolonged the suffering of people under her care because it benefited her. She was a monster and needs to have her Sainthood revoked.
She considered suffering to be a gift from God, and so didn't really go to much lengths to prevent it in the orphanages etc that she ran.
An organization of hers called Missionaries of Charity in India was found to be selling babies/children. She knew about the children being sold. You can look this up
The $20 Bill
Andrew Jackson.
He's on the $20 bill, even though he acted against the orders of the Supreme Court and violated the constitutional rights of Native Americans.
He also started a war with the Seminoles in Florida illegally, sending troops down dressed as Georgia militia to start a war that his federal army could intervene in. Then America lost that war.
Jackson started that war because Florida and the Seminole nation were a refuge for runaway slaves, but many black Seminoles were second or third generation, or the descendants of Africans who were never enslaved. The war was fought mainly to prevent Jackson and the army from rounding up and enslaving the black Seminoles.
The treaty of that war became the legal precedent for the Emancipation Proclamation.
Important For India, But Not A Good Person
Gandhi. Horrific racist towards Blacks and (other) Asians as well as White people. He was important for Indian independence yes, but not a good person.
Indian here. It is actually believed by some (based on well-established and recorded facts) that Gandhi actually postponed India's independence by 20-odd years by actively discouraging armed revolutions, which were beginning to create a serious impact.
His 'ahimsa' (non-violence) policy was very partial, ignoring heinous tortures by the then government upon the prisoners of revolution, but condemning any act of violence by the revolutionaries. He actively opposed Subhas Chandra Bose, who is considered one of the greatest contributors in the freedom struggle of India.
No stranger to taking a sandal to his wife, too. Baldy little bastard.
And because he was a racist pervert who thought Black people were apes and sleeping naked with his closest followers' wives and daughters was a good idea to "test" his own chastity.
- Filgidus
Riding Daddy's Coattails To Greatness
Alexander the Great.
Little pissant rode Philip of Macedon's coattails all the way to historical greatness. He would have been nothing without the army and the military strategy built by his father. The oblique cavalry charge was a stroke of brilliance, and Alexander was such an ungrateful little sh!t that he murdered his best friend for reminding him where his military might actually came from.
I'm not sure if Alexander so much rode Philip's coattails as he stole Philip's coat and kicked him out to freeze. It's suspected that Alexander had him killed.
JFKÂ
JFK, he did almost nothing and expanded the disastrous Vietnam war, I really don't get why he is such an iconic figure
Don't forget extreme nepotism and and a list of ladies a mile long that would #MeToo him in this day and age.
Don't forget about actively blocking Civil Rights for black people.
- jdb888
If you get killed, what you did doesn't matter much. You'll be glorified because no one wants to criticize a dead guy, especially someone who was assassinated
Barely Qualifies
A lot of "successful businessmen" are super overrated, not just as people but as being intelligent, successful, or even ruthless. Leland Stanford, for example, was a bumbling idiot who was looked down on by his co-conspirators in the railroad business because he was so stupid. It's just that he was willing to be immoral and dishonest in order to get lots of money handed to him.
It's weird reading about historical figures like him and then looking at someone like Trump and how much worship there is of his "business acumen" while listening to him speak and seeing how his business ventures worked out and realizing he barely qualifies as a used car salesman.
Winston
Winston Churchill. He was a good military tactician but an awful politician driven by narcissism and greed. He was a racist who committed atrocities overseas and was a misogynist who didn't think women should be allowed to vote.He was no more opposed to killing innocent bystanders than Hitler or Stalin - and the Irish were only ONE of the groups he slaughtered. As well as all that, he was by pretty much every account you can possibly hear of him, an extremely nasty man.
- B_9_M_7
I think people then kinda realized it though, you have to be a pretty big douche to be a wartime hero and still get voted out during said war.
To add onto that, three words: The Bengal Famine
Nice Plane, We Guess
Charles Lindbergh. He was denying the Holocaust before it was cool n 1939. The "Final Solution" wasn't approved til 1941, but in 1939 Lindbergh was loud and proud about denying that Hitler and the Nazis were discriminating against the Jews (cause that's just Zionist lies.)
And that's just one of the sh*tty things he did. He was also a prolific adulterer, an ardent white supremacist, a shill for dictators and authoritarians (as long as they were white and not Communist), a life long eugenicist, and a general a$hole.
To be fair, none of those things were really unusual in his time but it's amazing how everyone only knows him as that guy who flew a plane cross the Atlantic.
Also, it's possible he caused his son's death as a prank.
Too Hot To Breathe
Constantine the Great. He grabbed onto Christianity to make himself popular and also murdered his son and wife. Not a great dude, and actually had his wife killed by locking her in a sauna and making it too hot to breathe.
I attended a lecture by a medieval scholar who told a story of how, before chariot races, it was common for statues of Roman gods to be rolled around the arena and everyone would bow down to them. Once Constantine "converted" to Christianity, he had the heads of the statues knocked off and replaced with his own head, and the same ritual would be performed: thousands of people bowing down to the emperor-at-the-head-of-the-gods even though he claims to worship the Christian god. Then there's also the 40 ft. colossus he had built of himself. It seems he had a very large ego.
The Soundtrack Is Pretty Great
He's not exactly "historical" but P.T. Barnum is a racist guy who enabled slavery. And people are applauding the movie The Greatest Showman?
Rebel Flag, But Not A Rebel
Robert E. Lee
He was, in my opinion, maybe a worse person than any southerner that believed in slavery. Why? Because he actually didn't believe in slavery or secession, but was willing go with "his people" strictly for the reason that they were his people.
Lee didn't feel comfortable being an ACTUAL rebel and abandoning the society he happened to grow up in for his own personal sense of right and wrong- he put blind loyalty over the well-being of millions of slaves, soldiers, and innocent American townspeople.
Happy Columbus Day
Christopher Columbus.
In America we still teach kids that he was the "1st to discover America." We conveniently leave out the fact that he was a murderer and slaver who destroyed many lives and cultures.
We also don't mention how the Native Americans migrated here through the Bering Straight, or that the Vikings reached the "New World" long before Columbus.
Columbus was worse than you think. Firstly, he was not the first European to discover the Americas. (It's believed that Vikings discovered the Americas as early as 900 CE). He actually landed on a peninsula in Venezuela. He treated the Natives like garbage, and was even known to feed some of them to dogs. So, yeah. Happy Columbus Day.
- TheBoldK
Christopher Columbus
1.he kidnapped Carib women and gave them to his crew to r*pe
2.he kidnapped and enslaved more then a thousand people on Hispaniola
3.he forced the natives to collect gold for him if they didn't he would kill them
4.he would abuse the men in his crew
5.he r*ped and torture a lot of women because he saw them as gifts
A Cheese Grater To Your Brain
Ayn Rand. None of her stories/philosophy makes sense if you try to approach them from a logical viewpoint. And besides all that, the writing style is so dry and stilted that it feels like reading one of her books is like someone taking a cheese grater to your brain.
BeethovenÂ
I went through every comment and was surprised by no mentions of Beethoven.
Was he an amazing composer/pianist? absolutely! However, he was a terrible person. I don't remember the full details and would encourage you to look up more reliable sources than some random chick on reddit, but he was basically just an ass. Not to mention he drove his nephew to suicide.
- ventext
Other Countries Did It Without Killing Tons Of People
Abraham Lincoln.
Being famous for ending slavery by killing a good chunk of the population is not really that honorable or prestigious. If I am not mistaken, few countries had major issues abolishing slavery as a whole, let alone ensuing a civil war. So what happened with America?
Finally someone said it.
Dude. You seen how bad we took having to wear cloth masks in public places?
- paraouji
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Some of our possessions are no-brainer, have to have them, best things in the universe. Others are total beaters, through and through liabilities, that should have been trashed years ago.
But what about those possessions that fall right in between?
These are the things we love as much as we hate. Like some people or places in our lives, these objects and us have a love/hate relationship--and, surprisingly, almost as much baggage as the human version includes.
Some Redditors sat down and shared their best examples of these kinds of possessions.
lliorca336 asked, "What do you have a love / hate relationship with?"
Some set their sights on the elephant in the room. They described their excitement as well as all the issues that come with the expansive, unbelievably powerful internet.
The Whole Dang ThingÂ
"The internet." -- LM1120
"Yup. On one side, it can really help people who feel alone. However, it can also breed toxicity." -- RHCube
"Back down it was as simple as don't use it but thats not really possible anymore" -- Derpsterio29
Even More WholeÂ
"Technology in general."
"On the one hand, it's nice that I was able to deposit a check just now while sitting down on my bedroom. On the other, screw anyone who has the audacity to call me and greet me with a robot."
Horrifyingly Convenient
"I have it with none other than 'Google.' "
"I hate it when Google tracks my every move. I even feel scared sometimes. Like just the other day, I was watching 'Padmavat' on Amazon Prime. It wasn't even my account, but my husband's. We had to stop in the middle due to something."
"And as soon as I opened my Gmail next, the very first email on the top was a 'Spam' email asking me if I missed out on watching 'Padmawat?' Really Scary!"
"And then, I love it when it takes me down the memory lane. Like just today, my Google Photos app asked me if I would like to see where I was on this day in 2010? I thought why not. Turns out, I was at my friend's wedding. Which reminded me, 'Oh! It's her anniversary today!' "
"I simply sent one of her gorgeous pics wishing her happy anniversary. We had a long chat, after which I sent over all of the pics from that day. She was really happy to re-visit them and tagged them as the best anniversary gift!"
-- toxasagt
Others chose to discuss those necessities of day-to-day life that they've actually come to love completing over and over.
But that doesn't mean they don't get annoying all the time too.
ProcrastinatingÂ
"Showers."
"That weird thing where I'll waste time before entering the shower because it feels like such a chore that takes a long time, I'm gonna need 5 h to dry my hair afterwards etc., but then when I'm in the shower i never wanna get out."
-- Victoria749
Cruising, Until Your NotÂ
"Driving is my biggest love/ hate relationship. I absolutely love the feel of driving when there's a small amount/ no traffic and the feel of being able to go wherever you want in your country is so freeing. Start/stop traffic, car maintenance costs, insurance, monthly payments, terrible roads, the possibility of an accident, driving through new places without clear signage etc..."
"Man, driving at its best is one of my favourite things in life but at its worst I wonder why I ever got my license and look toward busses with jealousy."
-- LTPfiredemon
It Will Never EndÂ
"Cooking. I hate the necessity of having to prepare food and the process itself, but I usually like the result, and if I cook for other people, I get many compliments for how it's good."
"You know, when I hate to do that, then at least it gotta be tasty."
-- Ziriath
Others spoke about the luxuries in life. It almost feels absurd to complain about such wonderful, unnecessary possessions.
And yet, they are luxuries with a slight catch.
The Nut BarrierÂ
"Chocolate."
"Probably my biggest trigger to ruin my diet. Doesn't even have to be good chocolate. Doesn't even have to be mediocre chocolate (by American standards). I'm talking about, like Palmer's Double Crisp super-cheap, probably-not-even-actually-chocolate Chocolate."
"My only saving grace is that I'm allergic to peanuts, and a lot of the really really cheap chocolate has peanuts/peanut butter in it, so it's no longer a temptation."
More and MoreÂ
"Having a home gym:"
"Love: Not having to go far and not having to deal with other ppl and their bs."
"Hate: Everything you want is much more expensive than you expect... and you keep wanting more"
Another Take on Tech
"Modern technology. For every way it makes our lives easier, there's at least five ways it makes things harder."
"But overall, it's generally worth it... if you can get the stuff to finally work, which might take you all day."
-- Arekai4098
So the next time you find yourself out of wits in frustration, only to come back to that same object or task the very next day, don't feel so alone.
Everyone out here is emotionally confused about their inanimate objects and abstract concepts.
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People Identify The Common Misconceptions That Only Exist Because Of Clever Marketing
We live in an era defined, amongst other things, by the unparalleled barrage of content that blasts our eyes and ears throughout every hour of every single day.
Truly, it's exhausting to be alive in the contemporary media landscape.
Generations before had to deal with posters, billboards, and magazine advertisements, then radio commercials after that, and then TV commercials came along.
We thought the consumer seduction reached its peak with those.
But then, lo and behold, social media came about. And now the "information" peddled by brands and advertisers is everywhere. And so so much of it is misleading, or flat out incorrect.
Some Redditors shared the examples that came to mind.
Cameron213 asked, "What is a common misconception that only exists because of clever marketing?"
Many people chose to talk about the marketing efforts used to push health and nutrition products onto consumers.
It's no surprise that there were so many examples to choose from. People in contemporary times are obsessed with health, fitness, diet, and longevity.
So of course, marketers have taken some liberties.
"Zero"
"That things with 'zero sugar' can still have 0.2 grams of sugar per unit which is why tic tacs claim to be zero sugar but can still be dangerous for a diabetic person" -- Whynotgarlicbagel
"Always check the ingredients"
"I found some 'no added sugar' ice cream that had concentrated caramelised sugar syrup as a flavoring"
"Also no added sugar just means they haven't added any sugar. Not that it's zero sugar" -- EmergencyAdvance
The Natural WorldÂ
" 'Natural' food isn't your definition of natural." -- Gmax100
"Cyanide is natural" -- Izwe
"Everything is natural, nuclear power plants are as natural as beaver dams" -- Skylake52
The Anti-Fat MovementÂ
"Low fat is good for you. Well not just clever marketing, also lots of lobbying from the sugar industry" -- UltimateAnswer42
"That's a big one. Fat being the 'bad' macronutrient was something that took me a while to unlearn. I felt my healthiest when I ate a high fat, lower carb (50g or so) diet." -- Cameron213
Give Tators a ChanceÂ
"White potatoes are somehow unhealthy even though they are a very nutritious starchy root VEGETABLE."
"Just because when you smother oil and ranch on it it becomes unhealthy does not mean potatoes themselves are unhealthy."
Leave It AloneÂ
"Vaginal odor being bad was a thing for a while, and that it could easily be corrected with over the counter treatments such as douching."
"First of all. A vagina is gonna smell like a vagina, not like flowers. If you're concerned about the way your vagina smells you should see a doctor."
"Second of all, the vagina is self-cleaning and doesn't need extra soaps to help keep it 'fresh.' In fact, those soaps and chemicals can cause harm and create real infections."
-- ZeD00m
Other people chose to point out the marketing efforts that have aimed to influence our expectations of culture and the social playing field.
What is "cool" and acceptable is what sells. The question is, who decides what is "cool?"
NOT RequiredÂ
"Makeup as a necessary norm." -- b2lose
"Man, FU** makeup! I don't wear it and have yet to have anyone I work with question my professionalism for it. I hate it, it's expensive, and I won't wear it." -- TheRedMaiden
"I love this, and I'll also throw in: shaving as a necessity. I've had so many people tell me it's 'unhygienic' for women to have leg hair." -- buriedclementines
Manufactured StatusÂ
"That teenagers are cool, tbh. Teen culture is 95% manufactured by suits trying to make a buck." -- crookedhope
"When have teenagers ever been cool to anyone but themselves?" -- troomer50
"right? this kills me as an adult. all the cool teenager sh** that 'parents don't understand' was absolutely designed by grown a** dorks just like their parents." -- likearealreptile
Passing the BuckÂ
"The notion that climate change needs to be combated by individuals making changes in their day to day lives by buying green products. Corporations, global shipping, and factory farms all contribute massive amounts of pollution and greenhouse gasses that can't be offset by using less straws or buying a hybrid car."
"An entire city's worth of individuals couldn't even come close to offsetting the pollution created by a handful of ships used for global shipping, yet advertising would have you think that individuals could replace real systemic change and regulation."
And then there was one total, bald-faced lie. It had to do with an upsettingly common purchase that comes with an arbitrarily high price tag.
Maybe it's time to rethink it.
Pulling the Strings of Supply and Demand
"That diamonds are rare." -- icecreamterror
"That you should spend so much on a diamond and wedding, but can barely scrape by. Sure, let's throw a $30k banquet then go jumpstart the car again to get home." -- Choontz
"Futhermore on this; that 'cognac' diamonds are a desirable colour in a diamond, and are worth more than colourless. Jewellers originally struggled to sell stones of this colour so came up with a marketing concept to make them seem more unique, more special, and just as desirable as, or moreso than, colourless diamonds (which are generally far rarer, particularly if they are classified as flawless with few/imperceptible inclusions)."
"Similar idea with "champagne" diamonds...they were given this name to make them sound more appealing, too, so jewellers could still use them and increase the volume of jewellery they produce and sell." -- teenytinytinkerer
Of course, this list is so far from exhaustive. Pay attention for just the next few hours and I'm sure you'll come up with your own list of at least ten in no time.
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In the age of the internet, sometimes it can be very cool to hate on things just because other people do. Bandwagons can be fun, right? But honestly, not all of the things hated on actually deserve it. Save your hate for things that actually call for it.
Wanna jump off the bandwagon? Then keep reading!
U/lit3rallyuseless asked: What doesn't deserve the hate it gets?
​Film and media are probably the biggest contender for being hated on randomly. It may seem harmless, but not always deserved.
Actors are people too!
Actors who played characters that people didn't like.
Really if you hated the character then the actor did a good job (assuming that was the role).
The best cartoons.
Child cartoons. Some are actually really good, even as an adult.
I feel like watching cartoons aimed at generally a younger audience allows for you to be reminded of some life lessons, I know I forget some things, or didn't realise others, or it at least partially renews my awareness of something I should still like or appreciate
This doesn't deserve awards, it's just my opinion that is apparently shared by many.
This man did nothing wrong.
Guy Fieri, he literally is the nicest person in the world but since he looks like he was electrocuted by mountain dew people want to saw his head off.
Even before that, I was witness to his other charitable work. A few years back, Santa Rosa was hit by some terrible fires and he showed up at a few shelters and personally cooked up and served some killer buffet food. No cameras, no massive team of PR, just a dude with an assistant to keep him on schedule to hit up other shelters in the area. Guy Fieri legit earned a lot of respect in my book for that.
You know who DEFINITELY doesn’t deserve hate? Animals. They’re just living their best lives, and need to be left alone.​
The best cats.
Black cats.
We got a black cat for the first time last year. I've since formulated the theory that black cats might get some of their reputation from the fact that people can't see them well in the dark and so they seemingly appear out of nowhere and they might be instinctually cautious because they know people have a tendency to kick them while walking in the dark. Our black cat is the sweetest cat I've ever known.
They get a bad rep.
Sharks. They are beautiful, complex creatures, deserving of respect and, like any wild animal should be left alone in their natural habitat, but they get this reputation as vicious bloodthirsty monsters. This is only because every shark attack is news, and only then because they are so rare. More people are killed EVERY DAY by mosquitoes than sharks kill in a year.
Any apex predator that has remained evolutionarily unchanged for hundreds of millions of years, whose existance predates TREES, is deserving or our respect and admiration. Shine on, you crazy cartlaginous fish, shine on.
So cute too!
Opossums. They're neat little critters. They eat tons of ticks that carry Lyme disease, (mostly) don't carry rabies because their body temp is too low, and they're the only marsupial native to North America! They get a bad rap because their first defense is to hiss and bare teeth, but failing that, they just play dead.
If you don't have the predisposition to hate them, you'll find they're pretty cute too.
E: this is about /opossums/, the north American species.
Kiwis, I feel for you, but this comment isn't about your possums.
​Hating on other people for just living their lives also seems to be a big contender for things that don’t deserve to be hated on.
This is so true.
Unemployed people. A lot of people genuinely are looking for work and did not want to lose their last job/it was beyond their control (like a layoff) but they get so much hate and called lazy by most people. I know too many unemployed people that are actually really trying hard. They definitely aren't lazy. (Not saying lazy unemployed people don't exist, but to be fair, so do lazy employed people too lol)
Leave the weather man alone!
Meteorologists. They try their best to predict the weather based on patterns, models, and data. They're not perfect because predicting the weather is insanely difficult. When they get it wrong, I think we should go easy on them. It was probably an outlier result almost no one could have foreseen.
I've seen people get angry over the meteorologists for getting it right. Like they control the weather - it is their fault we are having rain, that kind of BS. Never made sense to me, but hey, I have plenty of relatives I clashed with growing up.
Please stop being d*cks to these people.
Customer service associates.
I hate when customers think that I, the minimum wage person forced to sit there and listen to them yell, am personally responsible for every policy they disagree with. Like, ma'am, if I had that much power and influence, I wouldn't be sitting here on a Saturday evening serving you.
Wholesome and necessary.
People don't deserve hate they give themselves when they are not doing too good at the moment.
I'm in a weird place and I didn't know I needed to read this. Thanks buddy.
If you haven't heard it from anyone else today, I'm proud of you.
It seems like people hate on things simply because they think they're meant to hate them. But you can always be the change and make an effort to stop being an a**hole about certain things.
No matter what though, sometimes haters gonna hate
Money means different things to different people.
Reddit user, u/TopTierUsername101, wanted to hear what you would do when they asked:
How much would $100,000 change your life?
Just Get The Basics Out Of The Way
There's the standard responses, where people ran down the list of the essentials they could get out of the way.
Making The Unmanageable Manageable
A ton.
Could pay off all debt and put a very nice down payment on a house.
Would make the mortgage manageable.
Give All The Money To The Kids
insanely.. i'm 19 and i'd be able to pay for university, pay for my car and help my parents who are on the streets rn get back on their feet and get my siblings out of foster care
You're the person I'd want to get the 100K. I don't need it; tons of people on this thread don't need it, but you my friend sound like you could use it for good.
Allowing You To Focus On Other Things
5-6 years of rent while i get my Ph.D sounds pretty fantastic
I hear this. I'm about to move with my partner so they can continue their education and would love to have $100k to live off of while I find work.
Wouldn't Go As Far As You Think
Then there's those other people who wouldn't be greatly affected by $100k, instead saying it would continue to help them comfortably move forward. Who doesn't like to be comfortable?
Almost Livable!
It would be almost enough for a downpayment on a house for us in our area. Housing is crazy expensive.
It would be less than half of a downpayment on an avg house in my area. This is basically keeping my generation from owning property and it's terrifying.
(avg. House here is about 1.2million)
A Slow Burn
Immediately? Not much at all. I'd pay off all my debt, take a chunk out of the house Im about to sign on. The monthly savings however would really allow me to change my life though.
Same here. A lot would change on paper, but the real effects wouldn't be apparent for several years.
This, also the peace of mind that would come along with it would be the most significant Change
Preparing For The Future
Just more money for retirement. That's all, business as usual.
Same. I mean, I'd say I'd spend some and go on vacation, but my vacations are typically camping somewhere cool and then hiking, so it's pretty frugal as far as vacations go. I'd like think that I could retire a little earlier if I had an extra 100 grand thrown at me, though.
Making A Huge Impact
Finally, there's those people who would do quite a bit if you were gifted $100k. This runs the length of saving lives to crafting a livable future.
Eliminating That Feeling
I'd be able to afford my own apartment instead of living with 3 ppl. I'd be able to focus more on building my life instead of just trying to survive every day. I'd be able to donate to charities and less fortunate ppl in my area.
Overall it would make my life less stressful and make me feel like less of a failure.
America Isn't Very Good Sometimes
Dude, that's almost 7 years worth of insulin. Can you imagine not having to wonder how you were going to manage your life threatening disease for 7, well technically 6.9, years? God, I could actually put money toward my future rather than trying desperately to stay alive in the present.
If the current rate of inflation continues, and if I am lucky enough to live until 75, I will have spent over 7 million dollars on insulin alone, not including other absurdly expensive diabetic supplies, like test strips, that are absolutely necessary for my survival.
Just for some context, each test strip, without insurance, runs you around 1.50 ($75 for a 50 pack of strips) and as someone who leads an active lifestyle and is insulin sensitive, I need to check my blood sugar roughly 6-8 times a day, more if I'm sick or an unforeseen event occurs that affects my blood glucose levels.
It's f-cking criminal what my country is allowing to happen to type one diabetics like myself.
Money Can't Buy Happiness, Until It Does
It would: pay off my husband's student loans and some medical bills that he has left, pay off my dental bill, pay off our credit cards, and then maybe we could get some upkeep/fixit stuff done around the house. The rest would go into savings. We'd have a good amount of money freed up each month, and that would also go into savings.
So, really, $100k would change my life by finally giving me a decent savings account that could be used in the future to hopefully avoid debt. It would be a very nice thing to have.
Dan Price, the CEO of Gravity Payments who became famous when he cut his 1.1 million dollar salary to ensure every one of his employees received a $70k a year salary, probably said it best when he noted, "Money buys happiness when you climb out of poverty. But going from well-off to very well-off won't make you happier. Doing what you believe is right will."
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