Why didn't you get a job and make lots of extra money with your time?

My interests have generally been situated in a narrow group of professions that require a lot of heavy educational accomplishment, so I felt that enlightening myself over the years with independent study was going to serve me better in the long run.

As my parents argued that I should get a job all through when I was young "to build character" I pointed out repeatedly that lawn-mowing and corn-shucking (I am from Ames, Iowa by the way) were not going to be large points on the resume, and that often menial laborers are known for their higher criminal records for the very reason that working mindless and boring repetitive tasks does not improve the character at all (in fact, unless you have "Flow" doing something that you don't like frequently brings a higher level of the chemical cortisol into your system, which can compromise your judgment abilities and do large amounts of damage to your system over time). This was a calculated argument catering to the worldview of my parents.

While many of my friends in high school found jobs so that they could buy themselves cars, CDs, and the newest video game consoles (which the had little time to drive, listen to or play since they were often working), I tried to make the little money that I was given during holidays or my birthday last as long as possible. This lack of disposable earnings often led me to hard sacrifices however. Still, I was also not a fan of what the income taxes of my countrymen were being put to in some of the 'covert operations' going on overseas during the past few administrations, OR some of the social consequences of selling cheeseburgers to the terminally out-of-shape, or sweat-shop manufactured goods against the national interest in trade imbalance or human rights, that gave me extra impetus to be stubborn and generally a massive tightwad.

To combat the culture of mindless consumerism I don’t buy or rent music or movies for the most part, I never throw away good cloths and still wear a lot of things from even middle-school, I am a frequent patron of my local libraries, and I attend (as previously mentioned) free lectures, concerts, and art exhibits instead of going bar hopping, I try to carefully maintain my car, my body, my computer, and other possessions so that they don’t break down or have expensive problems, and I don’t spend a lot of times visiting malls or shopping websites where I will be tempted to buy useless doodads. Also I try not to buy gasoline much by going by bicycle.