Wealth Shame: When Wealth Changes Your Life (and Not Everyone Else's)

In the modern classic American Graffiti, Richard Dreyfuss plays a recently graduated high schooler. In one symbolic scene, he tries to open his old locker using his old combination. It doesn't work. He gives a smile with a tear behind it and walks away.

The simple scene is memorable because it touches on a universal human experience: You can never truly go back. Your old high school friends are gone, and your favorite old diner is now a strip mall parking lot. The world changes quickly, and does so without asking.

Age is one thing, but what if this happens with wealth? What if -- through the deceptively quick process of hard work, wise investments and luck -- you suddenly find yourself in a new demographic? Financial struggles that may have shaped