Optimism Comes Easy for the Rich

The Right, the Left and the time of magical thinking

I shot this view across the river Neckar in Heidelberg, Germany in 2017. I plan to purchase one of these beautiful homes once I save enough money, probably in about 700 years. (Photo by Michelle Teheux)

It’s pretty easy to look on the bright side of life when you’re not locked in the dark.

Even the wealthy have their sorrows, of course. Their health can suffer, their loved ones can die, their relationships can end and so forth. Money can’t usually fix those things but it sure makes each of those things somewhat less difficult to face: The ability to afford your medication, pay for a nice funeral for your loved one or to still be able to afford rent after your divorce aren’t nothing. 

Wealth won’t make you happy

But being lucky enough to cover your basic living expenses sure helps.

I’ve been uncharacteristically lucky lately with my Medium account. My viral story, We Could Learn a Lot About Sex From the Dutch, surpassed $22K yesterday. That’s twenty-two thousand bucks, in case you think I carelessly typed the number wrong. I joke to my husband that we should start looking at European chateaus.

But in reality, I’m still pushing back at things like the suggestion that we should go pick up a quart of vegetable lo mein from the Chinese place. I don’t want to spend money because I don’t want to get too used to middle class life. This isn’t the first time the universe has briefly teased me with a taste of financial stability, and I know how it feels when it goes away. 

That feeling is something I’d like to avoid

“Oh, but you’re a good writer!” friends say. “You’ll have another big story!” These people, I should point out, are not writers. 

Writers know better. 

But lately, lots of writers are asking me to show them how they can also write a viral article that will earn $22K. People, if I knew that, I’d have written about a thousand viral stories since then, but I don’t know. 

Nobody does. So that story was, quite likely, a one-time comet streaking across the dark skies of my financial life. 

I’m a pessimist

Or, as a pessimist would put it, a realist. Sometimes, people try to convince me that if I expect great things from the universe, I’ll get them. I’ve just gotta be positive. I can manifest good things into my life by believing. Heidelberg, here I come!

This is the progressive version of the prosperity gospel that some right-wing Christians believe: That God will bless me if I have faith.

Both versions of this belief hold that poor people keep themselves poor by thinking a certain way. I find it interesting that as different as the right and left are today, so many of them actually agree on this point. 

But hear this:

People aren’t poor because they are pessimists

They are pessimists because they’re poor!

What we have here, people, is a chicken and egg situation.

I feel more positive when the balance in my bank account is healthy. We recently had to pay for new brakes, new tires and some stuff I honestly didn’t really understand on our old Civic. It all came to a cost of more than $2K. (We had just spent a similar amount on my ancient Mini, too!) 

In ordinary times, this would have been a disaster. I’d have called up my online banking info, grabbed a piece of paper and tried to come up with a plan to cover the car repair. Tears would have been involved.

Thanks to that viral story, I was able to just … pay for it. I didn’t feel happy about it, but it wasn’t a disaster. And it occurred to me, “Gosh, other people feel this way pretty routinely.”

A woman I know said the dealer told her it didn’t make sense to put the money into repairing her fairly new and very expensive BMW because (insert here a mechanical explanation I didn’t understand) so she just bought a brand new one identical to the old one. 

She lost no sleep over this. It was just one of those things that happens sometimes, like having to replace a moldy loaf of bread that ought to have still been good with a new one. Sucks, but what are you gonna do, right?

She could never understand my pessimism.

Our last trip to Europe was in 2017

My husband is Dutch, so that’s the only reason we can justify and afford going there at all. (We have to pay for airfare, but his awesome relatives always put us up and drive us around.) The last time we were there, we spent a day in Heidelberg, Germay to visit one of his nephews who lived there at the time. We each picked out which house across the Neckar River we would buy once we won the lottery.  

In reality, I’m pretty content with my place on the Earth. I just wish I could be sure I will be able to hang onto it in my old age. Seniors are the fastest-growing class of homeless people. I have cheap housing in a very affordable area and two great kids, so I am at lower risk than most. 

But the world is changing fast. There’s plenty of reason to worry about Social Security cuts and increased housing costs, the loss of millions of jobs to artificial intelligence and let’s not forget the rise of fascism and World War III. Anything can happen. Yes, there’s my pessimism again!

Here’s the big thing I can’t afford

Optimism. I can’t afford optimism. It’s a luxury more unattainable than the most overpriced chateau, watch or diamond ring.

About Michelle Teheux

I’m a writer in central Illinois. If you like my work, subscribe to me here or on Medium. My new book is Strapped: Fighting for the soul of the American working class. My most recent novel is The Trailer Park Rules.