“You are right; most of these messages are toward the middle class.”

We tend to be less relevant to our original base as we grow

It was an odd conversation I was involved with. A high school friend of ours, whom I am rarely (statistically ever) in touch with, reached out. It was a conversation about hardship, near-poverty phase, struggles, dreams, expectations, and family.

I also came across someone on Twitter saying:
Stop asking people if you can “pick their brain” start asking people if you can “pay for their expertise”.

I know what they meant, and I know what message they are trying to push forward, but it felt wrong on some level. I couldn’t put my finger on it until I connected this saying with the conversation I had.

Yeah, it is true; everything is somehow calibrated towards the middle class.

• Pick and choose your employer.
• Pick and start your startup project
• Take some time off.
• Don’t let that upset you.
• It is all in the mindset.
• Pay for the “next-level” advice.
• Pay and be an elite.
• Buy this and distance yourself from the lower middle class.
• All hardships have lovely endings
• Never say you are ok with 60K, 100K, 140L, 200K, 500K, 800K income…A Million and above is your mark.

And many more themes.

The stories that sell are of the poor or lower middle class who made it to the 6 figure club. These are not only stories of success, triumph, and inspiration (rightfully so); they are stories with one audience in mind: the middle class who can afford it, not the poor.

There is nothing wrong here, but rather something is missing, I guess. We miss that the struggling and the poor are not the same. Being born in hardship, poor circumstances, and lack of access to basics and opportunities requires a different set of skills. This includes discrimination, gender bias, corruption, extremists…

I once read that over 50% of the global population is not connected to the internet. Those are not by a choice they took and ended up writing a book about it (or a post like this), but rather the absence of access altogether. I wonder what billions of people will say once connected, what they will bring to the table, what disruption they could cause.

This post is an observation, not a criticism. After all, this is how modern life is shaped, and we are still figuring this out. I might be wrong, but I feel the further we go forward and higher, the less we become relevant to half of the population.