I'm in the wrong line of business

2004-05-06

I was on Amazon.com today and I have quite a few architecture books in my wish list. Amazon has this feature where based on what you just clicked on, what's in your shopping cart and what's in your wish list they recommend things you might be interested in. So it was that they recommended this book called Tokyo Houses. But, just recently they added a new feature which gives you weblinks they think you might be interested in based on the item you are currently looking at. The links that came up are as follows:

I mentioned this stuff before but damit, it's hard to ignore that there is a whole other world of luxury I'm not a part of. The Arikos site shows what they claim are average rent prices. Notice that at the low end they are $3000 a month!!! That's the LOW end. Hi end is $12000 a month!!!! Scroll down their page and look at the place they are showing! The Crystal Life site says there are 38,000 Westerners in Tokyo (That's jives with the stats I saw at the immigration office last week). According to that site, of those, supposedly 1/5th of them are living this lifestyle of fancy large American size houses or trendy apartments in Tokyo! One out of 5! I seriously just picked a place at random, just bad luck I guess but the first place I clicked on was this one. It's only $14000 a month!!! No, there is not an extra zero on that nor did I mistakenly do it in yen. That's 16 times what I pay for rent. These ones too, they have lots of pictures and floor plans. First of all, who do I sell my soul to to get in? People always say things like "money isn't everything" or "those people hate their jobs". Well, I call BULLSHIT! Money isn't everything? Money is what makes it possible to do almost everything. Want to visit your grandma? Need money for the plane ticket, money to rent the car, money for a place to stay, money for food. "Those people hate their jobs"? Really? Well, I hear that but they certainly seem like they are having the time of their lives. They have cars so they can travel at will. They have a large place to live where they can actually relax. They have a large place so they can actually entertain and meet their friends more. They go out with their friends to restaurants or bars or clubs that cost more than I can afford. They go on week or 2 long vacations several times a year. I mostly believe what Tony Robbins says (even if Penn and Teller think he's an asshole) which is that most of the stuff you hear about being rich "It's lonely at the top", "You have to sell out", and similar sayings are BS made by people who are not rich to try to make themselves feel better but that in actuallity it's made up BS. It's not lonely at the top, in fact the more you have the more you can share, the more you can meet friends, travel, etc. You don't have to sell out either and you can use your position to help whatever good you want. Pull up your friends and family or help lots of charities. It's up to you. All of that reminds me of a very interesting article a friend pointed out about luck. It basically says for the most part luck is a self fulfilling property. People who consider themselves lucky notice and take advantage of opportunities, people consider themselves unlucky don't. The professor that studied this did a test where he asked people if they considered themselves basically lucky or unlucky, then he had them read a newspaper and asked how many photos were inside. Inside the paper, half a page large was message "tell the experimenter you have seen this and win £250". People who considered themselves lucky noticed the ad, people who considered themselves unlucky didn't. It's certainly something to think about.

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I see the light