Adulting is tough.
Paying for rent, food, all the usual expenses. It’s even tougher when you have kids. I’ve come to the point where I look at headlines and get envious.
Of course, there are the obvious headlines. Somebody wins the lottery. That’s an obvious one. But winning the lottery seems so out of left field. And I never even play the lottery so that seems far out of the realm of reality.
What shocks me is reading other headlines where I find myself thinking, wow, that would be nice even in baaad situations.
Take for instance the plane crash landing in Toronto, Canada, recently. When it landed, one of its landing gears collapsed on impact and the plane rolled onto one side, its wing broke off, and the entire fuselage burst into flames after it came to a stop on the runway. There is a video of the airplane landing, flipping, and bursting into flames – it looks horrific. Miraculously, though, no one was injured.
But when I read that Delta, the American airline that owns that airplane, was offering passengers US$30,000 (RM133,000) each in recompense, my “adulting is tough” brain immediately started thinking, “US$30,000 to survive a plane crash?”
And it also immediately went to, “If the airline is so eager to offer everyone US$30,000, doesn’t that mean that the chance of passengers winning an even bigger payout in a law suit is pretty good?”
And another – rather morbid – part of me started fantasising about walking into a situation where I could be privy to such a payday.
It gets worse. I read today about a man who sued Starbucks for US$50mil (RM222mil) and won. The catch? Hot tea spilled on his genitals causing permanent disfigurement. But 50 million dollars... maybe it’s worth it?
What is wrong with me?
Turns out there is a term for this feeling. Settlement envy. This is when people see a settlement payout and are envious of it even though, logically speaking, they would never want to go through the hardships that resulted in the payout. Yes, this is me, entirely.
The media amplifies the payout because that gets views. What people don’t want to read about is how badly someone was hurt to warrant such a payout.
Permanent disfigurement to a person’s genitals does not sound like something anybody wants to subject themselves to, no matter the payout.
The same can be said about surviving a plane crash. I can’t even imagine how frightening it must be to survive a plane crash, and just trying to imagine it makes me understand I would never want to experience it.
And yet, we read – I assume I’m not the only one – the settlement numbers and feel a certain amount of envy. Although it is envy that is misplaced. And quite frankly, stupid.
Maybe it says more about where I am in my life that such headlines raise any from of envy in me. And that gets me back to: adulting is hard.
I fully blame my boy for this, and yes, I love him to pieces, but the financial hardships of having kids are definitely real.
When it was just my wife and me, or just me, I could stop working and go live in a shanty town somewhere if I ever became unemployed. For a long period. Or if I ever just wanted a break.
I don’t feel like I have expensive tastes, I just need a roof, cheap food, the Internet and I’m sorted. But no parent wants to raise their kid like that. And so the cheap option of becoming a hobo rather than continue working is off the table. Sad.
So I read these headlines and have illogical settlement envy. Also sad.
Big Smile, No Teeth columnist Jason Godfrey – a model who once was told to give the camera a ‘big smile, no teeth’ – has worked internationally for two decades in fashion and continues to work in dramas, documentaries, and lifestyle programming. Write to him at lifestyle@thestar.com.my and follow him on Instagram @bigsmilenoteeth and facebook.com/bigsmilenoteeth. The views expressed here are entirely the writer's own.
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