Money changes everything

I no longer read a book straight through anymore, hence I have several that I read in bytes, a chapter, a section there - put down with the expectation of getting to them later. Several I've started back in 2006.

In any case, in the writer's anthology Money Changes Everything, I came across a bit by the writer Lydia Millet in her chapter "Dirty Work":

... I was unemployed and desperate again, late in my contribution to the rent and living off ramen.

For the first time I saw how desperation can erode a personality, how the elements of a whole I'd always thought was solid and fixed - my moods, my mannerisms, my whimsies and choices, in short the parts that constituted me - were nothing but a luxury of ease.

That is so true. Poverty is a great way to determine your core values, but money does change the way you look at and approach life.

Although Im not scared of poverty, and no longer care what anyone thinks of me when I have none - I am determined to make sure fear and desperation plays as minimal a role in my decisions and direction. However, I do have the immeasurable luxury of only having to worry about me.

That may change, and I have to be prepared when it does.