In Need of Your Opinion

[cej214]

So, my computer is a little over five years old. Freaks out from time to time. And is overall showing it's age. I was talking to my mom about my desire to get a new computer. Preferably a laptop, which means I could keep my desktop and have room for a desktop

Comments

[stellae]

I know this is way belated and may be a moot point by now, but here's the thing... I'm often a bit reticent to ask my parents for money because I feel that part of being independent is being totally financially independent. And I am not good at accepting help from people when I can't reciprocate in kind. But what my mom said, in response to all of this and my guilt and worry is that it's much easier (and more fun) for her and Dad to give me things that make my life easier and better and are things that I want. She pointed out that I am being intelligent about my finances and am being independent -- if they couldn't help, I'd go without a lot of things, but I'd still have somewhere to live and food to eat and so on and so forth. But since they can, they take great pleasure in doing so.

It's something I need to work on. Somehow I defined independence for myself as not needing anything from anyone and only taking what I could give back. Which isn't really fair, because there are a lot of ways to give, and who knows what the future holds. Maybe I can't give expensive presents now, but someday maybe I will be able to. And when I offer things to people, I don't offer them expecting anything in return, so why should I assume that I need to treat everything as a quid pro quo of debts to all the people in my life? Still hard to accept and believe, though.