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Seeing Chance

Reading this story about fancy housing options for rich students attending elite schools brought N to mind. She was a stay at home mom with two kinds. The husband was help run the family business in Rajasthan so he needed to be away in India a lot. N lived like a single mom and found a kindred spirit in me though our circumstances were very different. N came old money and while she was not flashy, it was hard not to notice the wealth, it sat simply and casually on her. At the time, I was working hard to keep J and I afloat in circumstances that I very little control of. I learned a lot about how rich people think about the future as I got to know N. 

She was hyper-focused on her two kids and that was not any different from me. But beyond that we were not alike at all. N was scouting for cheap properties near our local university that had rental potential after some minimal improvements. She ended up buying one, hiring contractors to do the work and then renting it out. That was the first of what would be a set of properties she'd end up owning. For N there was nothing remarkable about what she was doing. She was only putting her money to work - no different than she taking care of her kids and home. These were basic life functions a normal adult needed to do. I was ofcourse in complete awe of her. 

In her world, a person like me was not performing like a normal, functional adult. I imagine it was hard for her to understand why not - objectively her situation was much harder than mine even if money helped simplify things. She was just as hands-on with her kids and home as I was. She did not have service providers taking care of any of that. Yet she was able to focus her real estate investments. Her properties did not house the mega rich like those referred to in this story but there was never a time when she did not have tenants. 

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