Rima Grace

We don't know if their family's helping them out.

Right.

We don't know if they're a second, third generation of family wealth or if they're generation zero.

Like we see whether or not someone has a nice car.

We don't see the interest rate and the auto loan on that.

And so we know that systematically people tend to de-emphasize the liability side of someone else's balance sheet when making judgments about other people.

Our imaginations want to fill the gaps and usually we try to fill it in ways that make us feel bad.

At least maybe that's how my brain works.

We should chat about that, Rima.

Let's dig more into that.

What's going on there?

That's true.

I think uniquely, though, in the American context, there's something else that's driving our feelings, which is we have made so much of our self-worth be our financial worth.

You can take that to the founding of the country in that we have these Protestant values that

If I'm financially prosperous, then I am a good person.

And all of my work and my individual work is leading to my financial well-being, which we know is not true.

But we internalize that.

It quickly turns into, man, my net worth is my self-worth.

And that's a really painful place to be, which is why I think people...

have a really hard time figuring out what's enough because what they might be thinking about is, what am I worth?