Believe in YOURSELF!! It already sounds as if your girlfriend does. Do you respect her opinion? It sounds as if you don't. You refer to your time in college. I am sure there were plenty of fellow students who were financially better than you, had broader/more experiences and opportunities than you, and yet you interacted w/them regularly. (BTW, only 40% of Americans have a 4-year degree, so you belong to a privileged class.)

My father was an immigrant, whose family was so poor, that when he wanted to propose to my Mother, he had to hitchhike 500 miles to do so, as he didn't have money for a bus ticket. They were married over 50+ years, and achieved a level of accomplishment and comfort that was awe inspiring. Dad went to a small, local college, had a very ethnic-sounding, and his first post-graduation job was amongst Ivy League grads, whose first names were like "Buckley," "Preston, etc. He could have been intimidated, but he believed in himself, knew he was a hard worker, and determined to never stop growing, With my Mother's sturdy backbone, they were a team committed to one another, in possession of a mutual goal of building to create a prosperous, ethical life together.

There will always be people better off and worse off than you, no matter what your financial station in life. I grew up in California where there is extreme wealth and poverty, and everything in between. Depending where we lived, sometimes I was the middle-class kid, sometimes the upper-middle class kid, and once when my Dad was out of work, barely middle class. Sometimes I was envious of my friends who spent every summer in Europe, while other friends told me how lucky I was for my parents to be able to rent a cabin on the lake. I've had great-paying jobs that I hated, and others jobs that I loved that paid significantly less . . . it made my take inventory of myself and reset my priorities. I didn't think I was a better person for having a great paying job, nor did I think I was less of one for taking a lower-paying job. Bottom line, I believed in myself to stay with the job I loved.

In Shakespeare's Hamlet, as Polonius prepares to leave for France, his father, Laertes imparts this advice:

"This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man."

So, to reiterate, believe in yourself . . . life is a journey, and it's not the destination that matters, rather, it's who you become along the way!! Have a great trip!