I had the opposite realization, I first started to realize the reality of peoples lives when we would play inner city schools and sports competitions…but that was an exception I thought to myself…
But it wasn’t till I really got into college with normal LDS roommates that didn’t have much that I realized how good we had it. My parents never made a big deal about it, or talked about it so I didn’t really think about it. We just always had really nice things.
We lived in $1 million home in the 90’s a mile from the beach, my dad drove a Range Rover and loved working on his boat or customizing the classic jeep he bought to fix up. My mom drove a Lexus and got a new one every few years. She had a walk-in closet the size of a bedroom and probably 200 pairs of shoes.
We went out to dinner all the time. I got what I asked for for Christmas and we took ski trips and went to Europe, Alaska and nice cruises on vacations. I always had the newest Air Jordans and loved to play golf with my dad.
So yeah, looking back I had a pretty darn good. Even though I never really appreciated it or even thought about it at the time. I just thought that was normal.