Question of the day: would you rather have friends or money? By friends, I mean anything you want: people of different backgrounds, both male and female, all ages, an entourage, etc. These are friends that you can hang with and talk honesty to, even about your mental health. Or is money more your thing? By money, I mean a full-time wage, enough to cover all your bills and then some for entertainment and savings.
My experience has been that most have one or the other. Either well off financially with few/ no friends or a group of connected friends but poor. If you had to choose one, which would you choose?
I had friends in high school but was broke. As an adult, I have money but no friends. The feeling of being with others and enjoying each other’s company is something I miss. Having some money is fine but unless I hit the lotto, I’m just another bean counter in the rat race. At this point in my life (I’m 40), I’d give up some of my earnings for a few close friends. I’d choose friends.
Most definitely, I’m not hating or judging if you chose money or friends. Having had both, money is less appealing. and as @noise said, friends could help you along, maybe find you a good paying job. i think it’s tougher to make friends than it is to make money.
well I don’t really think I have either. I get enough to scrape by, but that’s with help from my parents. I know i wouldn’t be able to live off what I get each month with disability on my own. And right now I can’t say I have friends. I had one friend I was best friends with since elementary school…my sister, but not really. Then she met this jerk…started taking drugs.
She told me she lost her job and was getting evicted and needed $500 but no one else would give it to her. I didn’t know she was using drugs at the time as I lived two hours away from her and didn’t see/speak to her on a daily basis. Though I don’t really have the money to spare I didn’t want her and her son to be living in their car. So I wired the money.
Then she had us bring her to our place with the guy she was seeing now…she acted a little strange but I thought it was just stress. Then I find out from her mom that she’s using drugs and she lied about losing her job. I haven’t heard from her since. And she was the only person I considered a friend.
So I guess I would prefer money, people can always turn and backstab you one way or another…money is money. plus I can use it to buy things to distract myself with.
No, it’s not about culture, you can’t be a representative of Chinese people. I think it’s more about the values that a person have which is very individul even among Chinese people. I don’t think most Chinese are the same in terms of social values. There are big differences among the Chinese people.
@gene Certainly a different culture between East & West. Friends could be business associates and that’s as far as the relationship can go. I’d probably prefer the company of family members than friends just as how Trump trusts his children more than Bannon.
Idk can I have friends and still get some kind of income like a disability check. I would rather be a loner than be homeless. But as it is my parents help me out financially and I have friends and I have a job coming up. But I am neither very popular or very rich.
That may be true since there are 1.4 billion Chinese and families on the mainland are different than those on Taiwan, Hong Kong & overseas. Spring Festival is coming up some at least majority of Chinese share that value.
When I was young I rejected the Spring Festival to show my independent thinking. So did my husband. We value more the comrades than family members. Seriously, even now at my age I still don’t contact often my cousins or othe relatives. But I contact my friends almost everyday.
Spring Festival is a big event in Mainland China. The masses of people traveling back home to see their parents, siblings, aunts, uncles & cousins. It’s reported even on the news but I guess not all Chinese celebrate Spring Festival.
I do friendship differently. The acquaintances come and go, but those frirends whom I made by choice usually last very, very long in my life. I really enjoyed this kind of friendship.