It doesn't take long, after a shift, for some of the women I work with to get into trouble.
Today's women behave like yesterday's sailors: they work so hard just to blow their pay in a few quick hours of bad decisions and terrible behavior. Then they get up the next day to haul themselves back to work for more service to The Man.
They may not spend months at sea harpooning whales or pulling up nets. They discard their lives in shorter-interval mistakes which usually have greater consequences.
We were programmed by evolution to be stupid, impatient, and rash. The gene-pool does not reward the patient, the thoughtful, or the careful. Women used to be a civilizing force, doing what they could to temper the stupid of the human race. They were the ones who had to live with most of the consequences. This doesn't seem to be the case, any more. Either that, or they have been sold on the idea that the consequences are actually rewards.
Then again, it seems many of the people who have the most satisfying lives are the ones who started off stupid and then came to terms with their "mistakes."
The question, I suppose, is at what age do you have to start getting smart?
We currently have a lodger. She's sixteen, and has no concept of saving up for things. She gets paid from her evening job on a Tuesday, and by Wednesday she's spent up. Get to the weekend and she's complaining she has run out of tobacco. That is nearly a hundred pounds just squandered with no thought of even making it last a week.
ReplyDeleteSome weeks I have change from twenty pounds. I'm 31 but looking at the different view points on money you would think the gap between us were more like 50 years not fifteen.
Yeah, I'm usually able to save a bit from my allowance each week so that if I see something bit I can get it. I think that paying cash for everything helps make money feel like something real, that can be saved. Debit cards are taking a huge psychological toll on today's new spenders.
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