One of my (and should be EVERYONE’S!) pet peeves is the Left’s utter denigration of delayed gratification. The sense of putting off immediate desires for better outcomes in the future.
Go out to eat multiple times a week or put away for a better car (or in the case of the Eldest, scrimping and hustling to get his degrees and a home to make a better life for his family). Progressives basically say, either directly or via their policies “live in the moment, live for today – tomorrow will take care of itself. TRUST us on this – we’ll take care of you.”
It’s the most misguided philosophy of all time. NO Socialist Government can take better care of you THAN you! Sounds good, that siren call. But it always means that to get the activist Government to provide for all your wants, somebody ELSE has to suffer and have less. They talk about “equity” all the time as if it was merely a synonym for “equality” – it isn’t. Strip away all the flowery language and it comes down to the lowest possible denominator – shared misery.
Go back and listen to Prof. Don Boudreaux if you don’t believe me.
Here’s a story, in part, of delayed gratification which should be a bright star. That IF you have the grit and if you have the determination, AND the sense, that “tomorrow will be FAR better than today if you aim FOR tomorrow and not the pleasures of today” (reformatted, emphasis mine):
Jorge Acevedo, 36, an immigration attorney in Miami, graduated from law school with $180,000 hanging over his head. After deferring payments for a couple of years, the debt had grown to over $240,000. Holy smokes — that’s a problem. But, then, Acevedo went out and changed his life.
My ex referred me to Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University. Ramsey’s one of those individual financial-advice gurus. He gives you a series of baby steps you’re supposed to follow. Baby step one is you create a $1,000 emergency fund. And then, baby step two is to get rid of all your debt. You do that using this technique called the “snowball effect” where you start paying down all your debts, from smallest to largest. So I started doing that repayment plan. I had a car loan. I had a credit card. I just took care of those first, and then I started hitting the student loans.
My student loan debt has felt like an 800-pound gorilla is sitting on my shoulders. I had to crawl and beg and work extremely hard to get to the point where I am. I wouldn’t say I’m judging, but sometimes I find it difficult to identify with people who are not making a sacrifice to pay off their debt as early as possible. It’s easy for me to say. I make a decent wage. I can afford to pay $7,000 a month toward my student loans.
Acevedo is displaying too much humility here. Do you know what’s not easy? Writing a monthly $7,000 check to pay off your student loans. Do you know what’s not easy? Having the humility to do this:
I bought a town house. I ended up selling it two years later to jump-start my student loan repayment. I took all that equity from the house, and it was literally in my bank account for two days before it went straight to Sallie Mae. I moved back in with my mom.
And now . . . he’s free. Acevedo took his wife on a trip to Paris to celebrate. They’re going to buy her a new car.Jorge Acevedo, my friends, is what we used to call “an adult.” Good for him.
Go read the first story at the link – a great example of doing 4 times the national median income but little apparent care of being what he is – a whiner. A victim (self-induced, by his own financial actions).
(H/T: The Corner)
