Stumble upon wealth
By Brooke Boniface
Stumble Upon is the greatest web site ever created.
I say this with complete and utter confidence because I have carried out the scientific research necessary to back it up. I have hours and hours of personal experience clicking the stumble button on my tool bar and waiting with baited breath for the hilarious video or informative web site that will act as my next boredom cure. One day this past year the gods of Stumble Upon led me to a web site called Global Rich List, which allows each visitor to enter their annual income in euros, pounds or dollars and see where they stack up against the rest of the world.
Excited and intrigued, I entered my mom's annual income, which out of respect for her I will not expose here, but suffice it to say it's well under six figures.
When the screen loaded, I was shocked to discover that my mother, a single-parent teacher who always scrimped and saved to give me the best opportunities, was in the top one percent of the entire world. Of the 6.5 billion people in the world, there are only 49,322,169 people richer than her.
For my entire life I belabored under the impression that I was far from wealthy. Going to private religious schools since before Kindergarten, I saw that most people around me had substantially more money than I did. Compared to the homes of my classmates, my townhouse seemed puny and unsubstantial.
My first day of sixth grade I listened in shock as a fellow student discussed his family's yacht and his trip to China that summer. I always considered myself lower-middle class, but this random web site opened my eyes to the reality of just how fortunate I actually am.
Since visiting the Global Rich List, I have been more aware of my charmed life, looking at things with a new and improved outlook. I have wasted so much time comparing myself to those around me that I forgot to appreciate and enjoy what I do have.
No, I may not have a large home with a pool and tennis court like some of my high school or college friends, but I have a home. No, I may not be able to afford the same luxury vacations that they can, but I am far from struggling. I have a job, I have clothes, I have plenty of food. I have every material thing that I could really need. But more than that, I have family and friends who love and support me through any and all challenges.
This is not to say that, until a web site opened my eyes to the beauty of my life, I was a jealous person dissatisfied with the riches that I had right in front of me. But now that I have visited this site, I will be forever changed, a woman grateful for the gift of each day.
Simply put, I, like everyone else, can get caught up in the race to have the most money and material objects, and forget what is really important along the way.
Whether the reminder comes in the form of a web site or possibly an article in a college newspaper, I think we all need a wake-up call every now and then to realize how fortunate we are and what is really important.
I hope this article can be yours. Brooke Boniface is a junior history and political science double major and editor of the opinion section.