Early Chapter 20: Emily

This.. this is just story you know? We're reading the tale of Rick. That means we're reading about what he's done and the choices he's made. His mistakes and trails included. Maybe write the tale of Alex for us to read instead of complaining about someone else not writing your story.

Sure, you being frugal with a college degree is totally the same level of stress and bootstrapping as someone who has to fight without healthcare and support a chronically sick sister. I’m sure you also had equivalent safety nets that and skills learned from family. It’s easy to tell a poor person that if only they’d have better circumstances in their life they’d do better. But for poor people their friends are their safety nets. They’re rides to work when your piece of shit breaks down, and people who check in on your sister for you, etc. etc. The people who can cut them loose are already doing relatively well. Rick is not.

Drew Allan Coon

Henry is an idiot and so is Rick if he stays friends with him. If he's going to be "driven to change it in a way he never had been before." To get strong enough not to get shit on by people like Mike he's going to need to bail on that. I've actually "pulled myself up by my bootstraps" which basically meant I didn't let myself be exposed to mistakes others were likely to make and got lucky after college. That meant I lost every friend I had and I sacrificed all fun and extra things to either save or invest my money into my debt. Rick is doing it wrong and doesn't seem all that motivated. He almost died, (also happened to me) that is scary as fuck and hugely motivating either you fall apart from PTSD or become inspired to chew steel and spit bullets. Money he is just sitting on needs to be spent getting rid of his debt or making him better at earning more. Free time spent "hanging out" needs to go to training. Food should be the minimum amount needed to fix his hunger and everything should be taken as life or death because any mistakes result in either his sister's death or his own. Money doesn't grow on trees and even pocket change can save or kill when you are poor.

Alexander Dupree