There is also the fact that you need to get along with the other monkeys in your tribe, no matter how neurotic and panicky they may be.

That's why it's very, very important to make sure you've got a good tribe to begin with.

But it's very, very costly to switch tribes for most people, so by the time they're thinking about that, it's too late.

Costly? Really? Perhaps it takes some time, but the switch itself happens pretty quickly, if people are willing to put up with some hard times as they adjust.

I think most people would rather start over with no possessions at all than drop almost everyone they know and try to make all new social connections. In fact, I think most people would rather start off with no net worth and their entire net worth in debt than do that.

This is something that changes as you grow older, when you have commitments to family members, to career goals or whatever.

You think twice about creating new problems that don't need to be problems in the first place.

Okay, fair enough. Perhaps I have too youthful a perspective on this right now, when my circle of friends largely changes once a semester.