wearethe99percent: When I was 17, I chose to...

wearethe99percent:

When I was 17, I chose to attend an affordable state school in a village close to home even though I had been accepted to 2 “Ivy’s” and many of my friend were attending prestigious Universities around the country. My parents, who worked blue collar jobs, could not provide much support for my education so I chose state school knowing that I would have to pay the debt in full. I worked two jobs through college to make ends meet and networked constantly my junior and senior year to try to find work after school. The Monday after graduating with my “useless” communications degree, I started as an intern in IT at a local college, making minimum wage doing work that was not related to major, but work nonetheless. After a year of showing up on time and doing my job, they hired me full time and I was awarded affordable health benefits and a retirement fund. Two years and no raises later, they offered to pay for my MBA through their program at the business school. In 2010, I bought my first car, a new toyota corolla with money that I’d saved for almost 5 years. In 2011, I bought my first house on my own after living on my own since college in a shared apartment — a $72K, 1 bedroom condo with mortgage payments that were affordable, even with my low income. Shortly after, I finished my MBA and I was promoted into a higher paying job that allowed me to make larger payments against my debt while continuing to live a modest life. I do not live with a great deal of luxury, but my life is the result of constant forethought and planning to secure comfortable means to live by. I do not not now, nor have I ever relied on anyone else to pay my way through life.

From Ditch the Coke Nail: Advice for the ‘99 Percent’ Movement.

Dear Subversive Infiltrator,

How in the hell did you sneak in? This does not suit. You with your subversiveness and your infiltrating—how can the slacker whiners continue their mewing when you demonstrate the horrifying traits of personal responsibility and a good work ethic?

Not buying things that you can’t afford? Not leeching off your parents and driving them into debt? What kind of dark magic is this? You must be one of those evil Wall Street Fat Cats in disguise. People shouldn’t have to, you know, act responsibly and pay their own way. People shouldn’t have to succeed on their own merits nor plan ahead for their own futures. How can the 99 percenters tweet stuff about The Man (tm) keeping them down from their oh-so-hip iPhones and such if you are speaking all truth to power in their FACE?

Fascist.

1 year ago