It's funny that we enter this world completely helpless. We are weak, bald, toothless, unable to control our bowel movements - and are dependent on our parents to care for us completely. Many of us also leave this world in the same or similar helpless condition. As we age, we often become weak again, many of us will become bald again and some of us will loose all our teeth - and possibly even be unable to control our bowel movements. But in between birth and death many of us try to keep up with appearances.
Life is a funny thing - we enter with nothing - we can leave with nothing - but instead of trying to help others on their journey, many of us will often try to collect as many toys as we can to show-off or try to impress others.
While I was attending college full-time, I was also working full-time for a bank. That experience was a real eyeopener for me. Many people who banked with us who drove Mercedes and wore Armani suits and living in a lavish house - were completely strapped. From all appearances, they were successful, living it up, and doing better than the rest of us. But the reality was - they didn't even have a hundred dollars in the bank. If they lost their job - they would quickly fall behind on their mortgage and car loan.
On the reverse spectrum, many people who came in and by looking at their car and how they were dressed, I thought they didn't have a dime to their name. But when I pulled up their account(s) to complete their transaction(s) - many times these people were loaded - but clearly are not flaunting it around. I remember several of them had duck tape on their car holding it together and it looked like they shopped at K-Mart for their clothes. But, they had bank accounts that were loaded - we're talking $500k+. Most of them had numerous accounts, each with at least that amount ($500k) in each account (the bank I worked at would show all the client's accounts - that were owned by the customer whenever you did any transaction - these were not Payable-On-Death (POD) accounts - POD accounts were shown in our system in another section).
Another thing that often seemed to be the case, is those people who were strapped and trying to keep up with appearances were more often than not frazzled and crazed - they would fly off the handle for the littlest thing and begin screaming and cursing in a heartbeat. The people who had lots of money, were typically super nice and incredibly friendly. I do not recall a person who had loads of money ever raising their voice or acting out of sorts.
This experience really taught me to not make judgments based on appearances.
This experience really taught me to not make judgments based on appearances.