I’m a grasshopper, but there is a little ant inside me that LOATHES the lazy grasshopper that seems to take over my body and my mind 99% of the time. The ant doesn’ t get out much unfortunately, and I’m not sure how to nurture it so it will grow and kick the grasshopper’s ass. 
grasshopper. my family has a thin but wicked streak of grasshopper in the hill of ants.
i’m the grasshopper for my generation. i’m starting to go ant though in the light of the economic times.
Same here. Although my brother seems to be making a real effort to end his grasshopper ways.
Ideology: ant.
Behavior: 60% ant, 40% grasshopper.
this. I was raised a grasshopper, without even knowing it (strange when you had a conservative Christian upbringing). My parents weren’t on welfare or in debt or anything, but didn’t save either. They always trusted God to take them year to year and trained my siblings to do the same.
It’s really interesting in retrospect how religious thinking creates a grasshopper mentality in many ways more than you’d think. When it came to allowances, the admonishment was always to give 10% away very first thing, not to save. When we got jobs, the admonishments changed to giving away 10% of the GROSS (pre-tax) income.
Doing so was a sign that you trusted God to take care of you and your money. In the fundamentalist Christian community, anecdotes are rampant about people who prioritize charity even when times were the toughest, and end up gaining more materially.
They also seem to genuinely believe that cars become dangerous entities after they’re more than 5 years old or so. They begged me on and off to buy a new car, even if it had to be 100% financed. I’m glad I chickened out on that advice.
They also told me that by leaving them (in a rural place with no career ambitions) and pursuing a high powered career in the West, I’d be disobeying God’s will that families stay together, and that daughters stay with their parents till they find a husband. :rolleyes: I think they were threatened by my individuality a little, because they begged me to take advantage of various affirmative-action offers. Had a relative who was working for a Fortune 500 business – she told me outright she’d get me hired because there was a bonus program going on for managers who employed disabled people – and they told me I had too much foolish (sinful) pride. I was determined to go and get hired on my own merits, not on my own disability, and beat the crap out of co-workers.
So, yeah, their mentality unintentionally got me into a large amount of debt. It took a lot of painful change to throw all that off and become an ant.
Question - does anyone besides me think that we, as a nation, are currently in an economic mess because of grasshopper behavior?
No, but he looks like an author I might enjoy. I’ll have to check him out.
Another reason that I see myself as a grasshopper–because I’m psychologically unable to adapt to any kind of lock-step, go-along to get-along (hive) mentality. I’m too stubborn and independent for my own good. Come to think of it, that would be quite a fitting epitaph for me when the time comes.
Being a grasshopper is fun and good, as long as you take some responsibilty and aren’t constantly knocking at all of your ant friends and relatives’ door.
An ant with a simple lifestyle, surrounded by needy grasshoppers.
Some days, I feel like a dung beetle.
When I want something I’ll get it. In other words, I’ll work for what I want, when I want it. I’m not much of a saver. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to be saving my entire life and then kick the bucket on some random occurrence. Sure would be a waste of time that I could have spent having fun. I do what I want. I live day to day. I have fun doing it. The future is not a guarantee.
I think that everyone who has given any serious thought to the subject has realized that. But I don’t think that’s the cause. I think the main cause came when people started thinking that making money is more important than making things. The first are leaches; the second produce wealth. Incidentally, I just read a prediction that we are in for another crisis as people cannot pay their credit card balances.
FWIW, I am an ant. The only time I have owed money is for a home mortgage, of which I have two (in each case scraping enough of a down payment to take over an existing mortgage, which saved a pile in closing costs). Now the only thing I owe is my current credit card purchases that are automatically paid on the 22nd of each month. I actually cannot understand the mentality of people who are carrying large balances and paying enormous interest payments.
I’m an ant. My idea of splurging is buying a new mouse (the electronic kind). Doesn’t mean I don’t spend, but to me going on a roadtrip with me, myself and I isn’t splurging: spending one week on a trip to Thailand out of which 4 days would be spent on the plane, on the other hand, would be a complete waste for me.
When I decided to buy a home, I went to agents saying “I want something up to X amount.” One of them said she’d like to go over the figures with me, and I let her. I told her how much was in my “homebuyers’ account” (a special account that was tax exempt under certain conditions, I was having to buy because the exemption was running out), she ran the calculations and came up with an amount of “X” as the maximum I could ask for and put 20% down. She said most people don’t remember about the taxes, notary fees and so forth, she saw about one person like me per year.
blondebear, the ant in the tale doesn’t live in a hill. Being in lockstep has nothing to do with being an ant or a grasshopper. There’s been times the immense majority of my circle of friends were grasshoppers; we went to the same places, but somehow I did it on 1/3 to 1/5 of their income, eating a varied diet and saving, while they didn’t know on monday before payday what would they be eating that week.
And so true!
I think that under Obama, it is better to be a grasshopper. Your debts will be wiped out, and the inflation (which will come)will transfer assets to those who hold debt. I am planning to cash in my 401K, and buy as much real estate as I can-I figure I’ll be rich!
I never fall solidly into one category in things like this. I act like an ant when it makes sense to act like an ant, and I act like a grasshopper when it makes sense to act like a grasshopper. Both behaviors have their pros and cons, and there’s a time and place for each.
I’m 41 and have been an ant most of my existence. Probably too much of an ant, really; missing out on some reasonable grasshopper fun. Nowadays I let my grasshopper side come out more often. The nice thing about being an ant-cum-grasshopper is having that ant money saved up and available, unlike so many of my grasshopper peers. Plus, if I were not a young ant I probably would have acquired a lot more grasshopper “stuff” that I would have outgrown; my middle-age grasshopping is more likely to be a night out with friends than acquiring all the latest grasshopper toys.
I feel like I’m in a pretty good place on the ant-grasshopper continuum right now.
I’m a natural grasshopper forced kicking and screaming into anthood.
I am now, and always have been, an Ant. Though when I was younger, had a reasonable amount of spending money, and wanted - needed - lots of ‘stuff’, I was more of a grasshopper. Marriage and parenthood changes one’s attitude. It’s hard to just up and leave for a grand tour of Europe (on credit of course) when you have other people depending on you, and I reverted to Antdom. Though I still splurge on things that mean a lot - books, shoes, eating out - my wants and needs are few. I don’t need a big ugly Coach bag to impress strangers, nor do I want to run off and join some druggie friends in Thailand. … I had the great good luck to marry a man with a good and secure job, a man who does not tolerate any great debt and pays the bills a week ahead of time, and we also managed to pay off our house and both cars. Now we are comfortable and secure (well, as much as we can be)… I’m the type who makes a list before winter of Vital Supplies we need if snowed in, and I go out and buy a case of toilet paper and canned goods and a 50 lb. bag of kitty kibbles…So, we Ants here are dull, but happy in our pitiful way. There’s a possibility that we will NOT be hit by a bus, that we MAY live into old age, and we don’t want to end up living in a cardboard box under a bridge, surrounded by the dried up exoskeletons of grasshoppers.
I’m an ant with toys
A fairly large percentage of my earning goes straight into savings. I should be comfortable when retirement comes. Thankfully, that still leaves me with enough disposable income to splurge occasionally, and go out to dinner when I want.
My brother hasn’t had kids yet, so I guess that makes me a grasshopper
::d&r::
I try to be an ant and save, but lack of financial security makes me more grasshopper-like than I enjoy.