If you budgeted

You assume I don't budget.

You could have been working overtime

You assume I don't.

I'll tell you what.

I earn less than I could be by now because I spent my first two years out of college working for a charitable organization. And it was the hardest work thing I've ever done. It nearly broke me, in a way that triple-majoring at one of the top ten universities in the country never came close to doing.

I don't spend money on status symbols. I earn just a little more than $100k a year. My apartment is what I need, my car is what I need. I spend almost nothing on clothes, on travel, on any of the things most people consider basics - let alone luxuries. There's nothing fancy about my life.

But you want to run me down.

I say that people who could do more good on a whim than I could do by choosing to live in a van while continuing to work unhealthy hours, and who spend $3k on a red fucking phone, share the same sin that I do, and you want to call me out as a way of defending them.

Well, guess what. I beat you to it. I already called myself out. I'm already not good enough. I already don't give enough. I'm working on it.

And they, who may give more while sacrificing less, don't give enough either. I don't know if they're working on it or not. Some are, some aren't.

And you? All I know is that you assumed I was a hypocrite, because you don't believe that people give. And when I said otherwise, and admitted that I am a hypocrite who doesn't give enough, you still tried to place yourself above me by dwelling on it.

It sounds to me like all you want is to rail against the idea that those who - like me, like $3k-phone-guy - have disproportionate privilege, should give.

You're entitled to that belief.