Do rich people know that they have it better than a lot of other people?

[Deemarie11]

I just think this is really interesting Im in a book club. In the book club is the poshest man I've ever met. Let's call him alan. He has told me his back story. His father owns a massive, massive farm. His father is also a chief director of another organisation, at the same time.
Alan went to private school. Alan plays rugby. Alan has a good job.
He is a nice enough man. But what strikes me is he is always,always complaining about his life.
And his problems are so trivial - when I know myself and alot of other people in the book club, had a far, far worse life than he did. Yet he complains the most

For example, one time he was complaining about how his father didn't help him get a job, when other peoples parents help them to get a job.

I was thinking "I didn't have a father at all", but I didn't say it. My father walked out on us when I was 3 and had nothing to do with me. I bit my tongue!

Next week Alan was complaining about the private school that he went to.

I was thinking "I grew up in total poverty, I cant feel like shedding a tear about your private school".

I don't know. He just doesn't seem to realise that he had a better life than most people I know .

Maybe really privileged people are not aware of how privileged they are? As it is all they have ever known? But surely you would know that you are better off than other people.

Maybe he just doesn't care. ?

Just to say some people are saying he may have had a hard childhood because he went to to boarding school.

He didn't go to boarding school.

He went to a private school. But he was a day pupil at that private school. He went home every night.

Exactly! Starting with the assumption that someone else is bound to have worse problems than you is a good idea.

Most people born in this country are more privileged than a huge number of people in the world. That doesn’t stop them complaining about their lives.

Doesn’t mean he wasn’t horrifically bullied.

And there really aren’t many wealthy farmers around nowadays.

I think people judge their own lives, for the most part, based on their peers and aspirations. You are more likely to notice what you want and haven’t got than other people wanting things you have got.

For instance, in the UK almost no one is so badly off they’d be considered poor compared to the world population. Even those struggling to pay bills are almost all housed one way or another, get some money from the government, have access to health care, and education for their children, etc. Have a standard of living that is higher than the majority of people in the world. I doubt they are thinking about that (and I don’t particularly think they should be) when they are ranting about how long it take to get a GP appointment or that they have to get up an hour earlier to get the bus when Jane down the road can afford a new car.

Having said the above, someone who has something to o moan about every time you meet up for a book club sounds annoying as fuck.

I think not having things growing up can make you more grateful (a good thing.) But it can also make you think rich people don't have problems (a not so good thing.)

I disagree. It’s a very sweeping generalisation. We are ok financially. We never grew up with money. We don’t have to worry about bills or anything but do have to worry constantly about our disabled child.

everyone has their own issues to deal with whether they are rich or not. There is always someone worse off.

While I understand what you mean - your worse off life doesn't mean he can't resent his dad or have hated his school.

@sadiewt I agree. I grew up very poor and see this a lot with kids I grew up with. I blame this on the constantly perpetuated idea that money= no problems or solves all problems. That's what was drilled to is in school, and is drilled in the media. Voila.

There is always someone worse off. I can (and do) complain about my awful, soul destroying job while also appreciating that many people wish they had a job that paid the bills.

I think a sense of perspective is important when communicating with strangers and acquaintances.
I would not go to a refugee camp and complain I could not afford a holiday.

No one is that stupid. But having to deal with getting someone in to repair something broken is not the same as not being able to afford a roof over your head.

Same here.
If I start thinking about the living standard of some people in my home country I can feel suicidal.
And yet on a rational level I'm fervently anti-communist.

I think a lot of people at heart have pretty poor social skills. And Op is talking about an example of that.

Dh is jealous because I grew up in a city, I’m jealous because Dh grew up in the country. Neither had a better life, it was just different.

It really doesn’t matter what his upbringing was. He’s allowed to moan just as much as everyone else.

Are only the less well off entitled to a moan? (On here that’s definitely the case!).

But surely its better to know who you are complaining to in the first place.
Common sense is not to complain in front of those who may be worse off than you, you wouldn't start complaining about a leak in your roof to a homeless person who has no roof.

It's one thing to have a bit of moan to your mates, quite another to complain to a stranger at book club that your rich daddy didn't help you get a job!

I think the good thing about books is that nobody reads the same story, all our personal history and our own experiences shape and interpret the words we read. To then discuss a book with a group of people you need to present them with a degree of your own interpretive backstory to make your viewpoint make sense.

I don't think it's tone deaf to bring up privileged moans in this context. Yes people are worse off than you but you couldn't read a book from anyone's viewpoint but your own so censoring yourself in this context would be pointless and stifle discussion.

I know some quite intimate things about the lives of the members of my book group and I never really discuss anything other than books with them. I like learning about people's lives in this way (even our very own moany Malcolm).

He sounds awful. But I suppose people would probably say the same about me. Depressed about everything, worried about everything, but I have a perfectly nice life and earn far more than my parents ever did, but all I do is mourn the past and fear the future.

YABU. You’re talking about one person and applying their personality to everyone in the same financial position as him.

In any other area of life you do that and you get rightly accused of discrimination.

Bereavement, addiction, disability, long term and serious illness, domestic abuse and nearly all the other horrible things that can happen in life affect people all over the income and privilege scale. It’s very small minded to assume that all poor people are always unhappier and worse off than anyone who went to private school and get a decent job.

He's just talking! You can talk too, and get to know eachother better. It's not a competition about who has it worse. He doesn't of course, he seems to have it better, but does it really matter? Book clubs end up having a whole heap of different people from different walks of life.

I believe rich or privileged people have every right to complain or feel their life is difficult because, for them, it is. Having said that, your Alan sounds like a right twat!

I know a lot of rich and privileged people. And in my experience, the level of whining about their lives is totally personality driven - ie they're not all Alans. However, what I do see a lot is that they are genuinely clueless about quite how little some people have. eg, comments like, "well, if they really wanted to do that sport/activity/hobby, they'd find a way" or "it's just £20 - I really don't see why they can't do it".

I see it a LOT and I find it very very frustrating. Sometimes I challenge it. Sometimes they even listen. But mostly, they just don't get it.

It just shows people aren't really happy even though the price tags on their belongings are bigger than the average ones like us

You do know that it's possible to be financially stable and yet still have bad experiences, eg a miserable time at school? Yes, someone who moans all the time is very annoying but this isn't Top Trumps and scoring points about bring richer/poorer than others.

People can be miserable about whatever they need to be miserable about. There is always someone worse off than you. is only the person in the world with the most to be unhappy about, justified in being unhappy?
There is more to being happy than just material stuff.