you do the math

today i talked to miko on ym to congratulate him on his graduation. and a chance to foist reality to a bum like him. hehehehe :) apparently, once you've been inducted into the workforce, it becomes a pleasure to inflict pressure upon non-trudgers, non-cogs.

so the score is that the bum's expected starting salary is 15-20 thousand. he would like to work in a bank. or in the meantime, business process outsourcing at accenture. but ideally a bank. i'm surprised at his asking price - too high.

in turn, he's surprised that even with my grades and apparent skill, i haven't even entered the mark he's hitting for. because his batchmate ron gets 30 thousand. and my sister's 25-year-old batchmate is getting higher because she's an AVP. both of them are at citibank. then there's april and baby at unilever, there's jesse at col-pal. too low.

my parents, i suspect, were more like these bigshots. that's why at 25 they could afford to get married and have kids and buy a car and a lot and have a house built. well actually, that didn't happen until they were about 30.

but whatever. the point is, whenever i hear about these things, i feel like i'm jealous of the amount of money they're getting. but it's not like i need that much money. it's just that, all things being equal, it's not as if they're any smarter than me.

the truth is, things are not equal. i dunno - maybe it IS harder to study economics or whatever the hell they took in college. or maybe it IS harder to haul your ass everyday to Makati to trade stocks or whatever it is they're being paid 30 thousand to do everyday.

i feel like there's this mathematics to the choices we make everyday, the crosses we choose to bear. like one will amount to daily work stress and lots of money, the other to little conveniences and less money. when the time comes that i need that much money, what choices will i have to make?

and my parents, i think in the back of their head they know about this mathematics thing. that's why my mum's so insistent to turn me into a bigshot. or why my dad is just keeping quiet even if we're not following in his path. but i'll bet they've got internal calculators trying to gauge whether we will be able to live as comfortably as we always have.

but life isn't just for bigshots. my dad said once that we don't need to purchase things because we are at a certain age, but at a certain income. Even at oprah they said that we shouldn't be afraid to miss our chance to buy a house or something, because at any given time, when we are financially ready, the opportunity will present itself.

so everyday, most especially on days that i hear about these bigshots, i just suck it up.