Letters to the Editor
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Therapy schmerapy
since when did therapy become the be-all end-all to life's problems?
I think you're too harsh on the LW.
I had a friend who was from a wealthy family and he was MISERABLE, mostly because he could never figure out what to DO with his life.
He didn't have to work, work was optional. His struggle was how to decide what to commit to. Of course he went to therapy (he could afford it), and like too many of them out there, this therapist saw him with his "trust fund issues" as his gravy train ticket to paying off his mortgage. Had him going far too long, far too often... until the money ran out... then my friend was told that he didn't "need" it anymore.
What my friend really needed was to get his hands dirty and commit to something and WORK HIS A$$ off! Not sit in a chair for $90 a session hand-wringing about his mommie and his daddy!
(He eventually figured this out. But I could have saved him a whole lot of time and money.)But I guess on some level he needed to blow through that trust fund cash so that he would have to join the rest of us working stiffs.
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So in other words...
Your friend was a dink who couldn't tell when he was being used. Rule one about therapy, if it's not working, stop going or find another therapist. Also if you could've saved your friend alot of time and money by just telling him to commit to something (which it sounds like he was already in the midst of figuring out what he wanted to commit to and was coming up with nothing) then why didn't you? Point of fact, if his situation was anything like mine (minus the money factor), you telling me that would've just pissed me off and gained you a response of "No shit, captain obvious." The problem is figuring out what you want to commit to, I committed to the Army which is why I suggest it for others who are stuck in the position I was in. I love my job, it keeps me busy, and it keeps me away from civilians like you.
Have fun Captain Obvious.
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uh, yeah
joining the Army is a realistic option for beautiful heiresses! Riiight.
Hope you get shipped out soon.
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delete that last post.
I'm sorry. That was mean. I didn't mean it.
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The Prisoner has Everything She Could Possibly Want, Except...
...freedom? No, I realize all that affluence is supposed to be able to purchase freedom, but it doesn't. It only helps the prisoner to furnish her cell with a better grade of stuff.
It's hardly surprising that people born in a prison - social, religious, political, physical, check all that apply, would feel desperately unhappy. One is raised to "know" that if one is sufficiently affluent there is nothing further standing between the subject and her ultimate happiness. We have labor unions and corporate robber barons telling us the same thing - from different perspectives, but still the same thing.
"Take a pill." There's some excellent advice for someone who has lost track of her very soul. Play with your seratonin levels - inside the damned prison. But before you choose to do that or to not do it, dear LW, you must first realize the affluence and physical, material good fortune you are heiress to is neither the prison nor the means of escape. It is nothing, really, as you have painfully become aware. That, in itself, must be terribly disturbing. A pill won't change it. Brain chemistry has very little to do with being imprisoned. Oh, it can make us willing to tolerate our imprisonment, but it won't get us out.
Cary actually did make some good suggestions to you. It's all outside you, outside your gilded cage, where the free birds are flying. Start by watching them - without judgement - and simply be aware of their joy, which lasts until the moment they drop - or are perhaps shot - out of the air. What may lie beyond that moment doesn't matter either, because we don't know, can't know, unless we first find truth, begin to know ourselves, stripped of our awareness of the cage - until we are able to walk directly through the walls of the prison this unfortunate society has placed over us like a cage.
Your suffering is encouraging: it means you aren't shallow enough to be satisfied with the simple (and simple-minded) gratifications that convey with life in the most plush wing of the prison. You want something more. This is the beginning of passion. Go with it.
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Read my post again.
LeCastor
Surely you can see this letter is nothing more than attention grabbing? Someone so rich and so beautiful has access to therapists whom most of us here will never be able to afford and yet this beautiful rich girl, who likes admitting how much she's bathed in adoration by her peers, decides instead to email an e-zine advice columnist (who more often than not gives piss poor advice and abunch of babble) where her letter, and the answer, can be read publicly by millions of people. That doesn't say to me that this person is interested in solving their problem, they just want people to feel for them, in which case I have no pity for her. I have little pity for the rich to begin with when I hear them bitch considering they have access to resources I'll never have to help them, this crap just makes it less likely that I'll pity her.
"Woe is me, I'm rich, beautiful, and I have a wonderful boyfriend, but I'm still sad." Ever thought it might be due to the fact that the majority of your life revolves around hollow bullshit which doesn't matter? Maybe it's just me but I tend to be happier when I gear my life towards something meaningful instead of towards people showering me with affection. Want affection, get a dog.
-- Daniel Williams
Why does that matter? Maybe she reads Salon.com -- after all, rich people have access to the internet too, and she thinks Cary gives good advice. And she'll get the advice of all the readers too. For free. Anonymously. What's not to like?
You seem to be fixated on "things she has that i will never have." For someone who says he's a Buddhist, you're obsessed with her material possessions, and for someone who wants to come off as of modest means, you have expensive tastes (water sports, winter sports). I'm not rich, not even close, but there's always going to be someone worse off than you who can say that you shouldn't complain, so why pick on this heiress? There are probably people who are much richer than she is, and she could say that they shouldn't complain because they have even more money. To someone from Darfur, you shouldn't complain because you're very well off.