Why Middle Class People are More Arrogant than Rich People
By Johnny Tsimogiannis
It is a common belief to have that all wealthy people have some level of cockiness compared to the rest of the population. Now, while the idea that rich people have a strong ego is actually true for the most part, resorting to the term arrogance is unfortunately not the case. In fact, most middle class people are actually more arrogant than most wealthy people. This might seem super contradictory at first, but I’ll explain EXACTLY why.
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We must first define what an ego is, and what arrogance is. Ego can be defined as the sense of someone’s importance and self-esteem, thus having a strong ego would mean having a high sense of self-importance, and virtually being self-centred. Arrogance on the other hand can be defined as having an exaggerated sense of one’s importance or abilities. In the context of money, wealthier people are bound to have a high level of self confidence when it comes to their ability to make money, and poorer people are bound to have a lower level of self confidence in that area.
The reason people with less money are more arrogant than richer people is because their sense of value is inflated by their bitterness towards people who have more money than them. This bitterness causes them to have the perspective that all rich people don’t care about anyone, and think they’re superior to everyone else, which obviously isn’t the case. This cluster of emotions makes them feel like they DESERVE more money than they currently earn, and so this unstable arrogance begins to rise. Because everyone experiences difficulty in their life, yet some end up in different financial positions due to the choices and work they undertake (With the exception of rare inheritance scenarios), those who are closer to the bottom of the financial spectrum believe that the rich have had it all given to them, and fail to see the hardships they had to go through in order to get to where they are, blindsided by the outcome. Let’s put it this way.
Let’s assume that Jake here, (Representing the majority of the wealthy population) works far more intensely than Fred (Representing the majority of the less wealthy population). Jake barely goes out and spends money on social events, has a strict schedule filled with entrepreneurial activities and learning applicable skills. He tries everything from starting his own online business, to investing in the stock market, to becoming a social media influencer. Because of his hard work, Jake eventually ends up in a snowball situation, where the more money he earns, the more he invests into his own work, and reaches a point where he can be considered rich. He finds a partner, and they proceed to marry a couple of years later, with some children. Jake easily makes a great life for him and his family with what he has.
Fred on the other hand works an ordinary 9-5 job, spends lots of his free time going to clubs, bars, parties, etc. In these events, he eventually finds who would come to be his wife, and a couple of years later they end up having a couple of kids. With the family and his wife consuming much of his time and money through needing a large house, 2 cars, school, sports, shopping, daily essentials like food, and other miscellaneous items, Fred gets to the point where he is struggling to provide and make payments for his mortgage, bills, and other major standard living expenses. These financial problems have led to other issues, causing huge arguments with his wife and his family, and overall a mess to deal with.
Jake has worked hard, and achieved an outcome directly correlating with how he spent his time in his earlier years. However, since his situation is now more fortunate with the results of him and his family’s situation, he is viewed as lucky. When he tries to explain to others that there was no luck involved, and how he spent his time compared to how they spent their time led to his success and their dilemmas, he is subsequently viewed as an arrogant rich person who believes he is above everyone else, especially from people like Fred. Since Fred now has more problems than ever, his mind is so occupied that he feels as though he can never catch a break, and that he’s been working hard his whole life, and is therefore deserving of a rest and some financial support from the supposed ‘narcissistic’ rich people. Fred is arrogant, because if he made some more intelligent choices when he was younger, and worked some more, he would not have reached a point where he would become overwhelmed with issues.
Now, you might be asking, why haven’t you said that poor people are more arrogant? Why have you specified in the title “middle class”? The reason is that I believe while the lower section of the middle class can be considered poor (Which is the demographic I was mainly targeting with the above example of Fred), I didn’t want to confuse this with people who are genuinely living in extreme poverty, especially in underdeveloped countries. This article is generally focussed on people in western societies or developed first world countries with decent economic systems, and so I have decided to adopt the term “middle-class” instead.
The reality is, if you want to be rich, you need to focus on yourself for extended periods of time. This could constitute you as being self-centred in some instances, and could mean that you technically have an ‘ego’, but that ego is necessary for you to make money for yourself. If you’re constantly focussing on other people and worrying about external judgement or perspectives, you’ll never be able to concentrate on making the cash you desire with all of these distractions. You have to be able to tune out these distractions, and it takes a level of confidence and selfishness to do so. However, once you do reap the benefits of your hard work with monetary gains, your ego will have a REASON to exist. Arrogance occurs when there is no reason for the confidence you possess, while an ego is the opposite. Arrogance often leads to negative results with other people, because its central idea is about being superior to others, while having an ego is more about focussing on yourself. If you utilise an ego correctly, it can be a major positive outlet for your life, and can allow you to remain locked and loaded on developing yourself without the need for others.
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