beautiful homeAn executive one “rung” up from me at the company makes three times my annual salary. And a huge bonus. I saw the outside of his house a few months ago and I was stunned by the size of it, first of all. It has a beautiful circular drive lined with beautiful masonry walls. And gorgeous landscaping completed with “uplighting” which illuminates the branches of his perfect trees in a perfect row at night. (By the way, this picture is of a generic nice house, not his!)

A few acquaintances of mine at Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street outfits are getting bonuses this year of $500,000+. The next door neighbors just got a beautiful new BMW and I do believe it is “the ultimate driving machine.” A bunch of my gay friends are going on a cruise in March, and it’s 50% off, only $2500 per person!! Too rich for my blood.

Is there a human being on the planet who doesn’t feel jealousy? Probably–some advanced souls who are over all this materialistic crap. But the rest of us look around, and rarely compare ourselves to those less fortunate. No, we always seem to be looking at those one “rung” above us. In Buddhist and Hindu mythology, the demi-gods are always at war with the gods, driven by jealousy and pride. It defines their existence.

Even if most of us aren’t *that* bad, still, we occasionally look around, see someone with quite a lot of good fortune in the material sense, and think “Huh. I work really hard, and yet here I am struggling while So-and-so is living the life of Reilly.” I admit that I occasionally feel that pang. (And I’m not really sure who Reilly is or why his/her life is so great.)

Well, I will share with you that when I feel that way, I’m a fool. I would venture to say that any of us reading Queercents (with access to a computer and the Internet) are doing really, really well, compared to almost anyone.

In fact, if your household earns $23,108 a year (which was the threshold of poverty in the U.S. in 2004, according to the Census Bureau) you are in the top 10.49% of wealthy households in the world. If you earn $45,000 a year, you are in the top 2% of wealthy households in the world.

I’ve discovered a handy little calculator to help me keep everything in perspective: the Global Rich List. You type in your annual household income (in pounds, dollars, yen, or euros) and you can see how you are doing relative to the rest of the world.

This little calculator was put together by a British advertising agency, Poke, who are trying to raise awareness of poverty and raise money for Care International.

It helps me to remember that almost half of the people on this planet are struggling to find something to eat, every day. According to Wikipedia (quoting the World Bank) nearly 3 BILLION people live on $2 or less a day.

Suddenly I don’t feel very jealous of anyone. I’m just very, very grateful for what I have, and thinking about how I can give a hand to someone else.