I was anxious all the time about bills. My wife and I lived paycheck to paycheck accounting every dollar to basic needs like food and shelter and even after all that we still were using our credit cards and were in an intense amount of crippling debt. We had side gigs and worked under the table to make it all work, and yes we were under slept and over worked and yes we were depressed but it’s what we understood life to be.
A little over a year ago during covid when things were shutdown, my wife and I were both laid off and struggling to make ends meet. Months of applying landed me a role at a startup that grew very quickly, the 40k I started out has turned into 160k as a manager. We have managed to wipe our debts and save almost 70k because we haven’t changed anything about our habits and though my wife is happy and feels like her anxiety is gone I feel so depressed and anxious. I’m at a loss, all the years of struggling means nothing. Life is unfair and nothing makes sense. There’s no correlation between hard work and money earned nor is there one for ethics and karma. It all just feels pointless, I shouldn’t be making this much while minimum wage literally is stagnant and not allowing people to meet basic needs.
Capitalism really is just a dystopian nightmare.