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Bootstraps.
"Get a job!"
Here's how I pulled myself up by my bootstraps.
My original plan was to be a professional entertainer of some sort. I loved performing, so aged 13 I chose to study performing arts at school (GCSE level). Then aged 15 I decided to study performing arts full time at college for two years.
Of course, during this entire time I had support from my parents. My father is disabled, and hasn't had a proper job in about 28 years, so my entire family had support from social programs of one type or another.
At college I lived with my parents, of course, and during the course of college I had free meals and free bus transport and grants to help me out. I bought my first PC using a grant.
After college I wasn't sure if I wanted to do music or theater at university. I took a year out and worked for 9 months in a school kitchen, washing dishes and cleaning tables.
I decided to study music production, a degree called Creative Music Technology. At university I had some grant support, but most expenses were covered by student loans. I supplemented this by working night shifts at a supermarket, stacking shelves. When I left university I moved back in with my parents for a few months, and got a job working at a day care center for mentally and physically disabled people.
During this time I'd taken a lot of time to juggle, and it was a really fun hobby. I didn't consider it to be a serious career option though.
My brother-in-law worked for a TV station, and mentioned a job opening. I applied, without the company or the interviewers knowing I was related to a manager. I didn't get the job, as I could edit audio but wasn't skilled in video edited on their equipment. A week later three people were fired from the company, and they suddenly had vacancies. They asked if I'd take a job.
I moved to a new city, and stayed at a friends house until I could find a home of my own. I ended up living my friend for the next 18 months.
After two years working for the TV station, doing sound mixing, editing, camera work and other production duties, I quit. I loved the job, just not the people I had to work for. All four people in my department quit within four weeks of each other, so it wasn't just me who had problems!
I had another job lined up, but a two month gap with nothing to do. I'd planned to go traveling, but due to weird life events, I ended up studying acrobatics. Again I stayed with friends, and when I decided not to take up the other job offer, I stayed with my parents between travels, and even getting a grant to return to study acrobatics for another two months.
Due to not wanting to work in offices and studios, or sitting in an editing suite for eight hours a day, I decided to try to make it as a juggler. I made some money from paid gigs, but for a while my largest income was from making juggling beanbags and doing street shows. I met a girl, and finally moved out of my parents place to Berlin.
I worked as juggler, and also a tour guide, in Berlin. Later Pola and I got a good recommendation from other jugglers to work on cruise ships, and they also recommended us to their agent. That now accounts for about 90% of my income per year.
Now I do well for myself. I could earn more money than I do, but I like to have a healthy work/home balance.
My bootstrap pulling skills:
* I didn't originally plan to be a professional juggler, it wasn't more than a hobby.
* The career I aimed for only lasted two years.
* Once I settled on the idea, I worked VERY hard to be a juggler and entertainer.
Help I had along the way:
* Parents constantly giving support and a place to live between travel and jobs and even careers.
* Government grants for college, university, and even acrobatics school.
* Student loans.
* Free at point of service healthcare (with national health insurance payments only when an employee, not when self employed).
* Friends helping me out with housing, and even loans.
* Family connections.
* The juggling scene providing unmeasurable teaching, help, advice, encouragement, etc.
* Volunteers organizing juggling conventions and festivals where I could practice juggling and entertaining on stage.
* Other jugglers providing connections and information about gigs and agents.
Conclusion:
* Almost everything I rationally decided to do, career-wise, didn't fit me and my life.
* Almost everything that happened to me accidentally led to BETTER opportunities than anything I consciously planned to do when setting out.
* Without help from other people and government social programs, I'd be totally screwed.
* It takes a LOT of hard work to be a professional entertainer.
* I'm very happy to do crazy hard work to give other jugglers the opportunities that I had myself (Eg. running workshops, organizing shows and open stages, helping run conventions, creating the British Young Juggler of the Year show and competition, etc etc etc).
* I'm happy to pay taxes.
* I'm happy to support other artists financially if these need and/or ask for help.
Here's how I pulled myself up by my bootstraps.
My original plan was to be a professional entertainer of some sort. I loved performing, so aged 13 I chose to study performing arts at school (GCSE level). Then aged 15 I decided to study performing arts full time at college for two years.
Of course, during this entire time I had support from my parents. My father is disabled, and hasn't had a proper job in about 28 years, so my entire family had support from social programs of one type or another.
At college I lived with my parents, of course, and during the course of college I had free meals and free bus transport and grants to help me out. I bought my first PC using a grant.
After college I wasn't sure if I wanted to do music or theater at university. I took a year out and worked for 9 months in a school kitchen, washing dishes and cleaning tables.
I decided to study music production, a degree called Creative Music Technology. At university I had some grant support, but most expenses were covered by student loans. I supplemented this by working night shifts at a supermarket, stacking shelves. When I left university I moved back in with my parents for a few months, and got a job working at a day care center for mentally and physically disabled people.
During this time I'd taken a lot of time to juggle, and it was a really fun hobby. I didn't consider it to be a serious career option though.
My brother-in-law worked for a TV station, and mentioned a job opening. I applied, without the company or the interviewers knowing I was related to a manager. I didn't get the job, as I could edit audio but wasn't skilled in video edited on their equipment. A week later three people were fired from the company, and they suddenly had vacancies. They asked if I'd take a job.
I moved to a new city, and stayed at a friends house until I could find a home of my own. I ended up living my friend for the next 18 months.
After two years working for the TV station, doing sound mixing, editing, camera work and other production duties, I quit. I loved the job, just not the people I had to work for. All four people in my department quit within four weeks of each other, so it wasn't just me who had problems!
I had another job lined up, but a two month gap with nothing to do. I'd planned to go traveling, but due to weird life events, I ended up studying acrobatics. Again I stayed with friends, and when I decided not to take up the other job offer, I stayed with my parents between travels, and even getting a grant to return to study acrobatics for another two months.
Due to not wanting to work in offices and studios, or sitting in an editing suite for eight hours a day, I decided to try to make it as a juggler. I made some money from paid gigs, but for a while my largest income was from making juggling beanbags and doing street shows. I met a girl, and finally moved out of my parents place to Berlin.
I worked as juggler, and also a tour guide, in Berlin. Later Pola and I got a good recommendation from other jugglers to work on cruise ships, and they also recommended us to their agent. That now accounts for about 90% of my income per year.
Now I do well for myself. I could earn more money than I do, but I like to have a healthy work/home balance.
My bootstrap pulling skills:
* I didn't originally plan to be a professional juggler, it wasn't more than a hobby.
* The career I aimed for only lasted two years.
* Once I settled on the idea, I worked VERY hard to be a juggler and entertainer.
Help I had along the way:
* Parents constantly giving support and a place to live between travel and jobs and even careers.
* Government grants for college, university, and even acrobatics school.
* Student loans.
* Free at point of service healthcare (with national health insurance payments only when an employee, not when self employed).
* Friends helping me out with housing, and even loans.
* Family connections.
* The juggling scene providing unmeasurable teaching, help, advice, encouragement, etc.
* Volunteers organizing juggling conventions and festivals where I could practice juggling and entertaining on stage.
* Other jugglers providing connections and information about gigs and agents.
Conclusion:
* Almost everything I rationally decided to do, career-wise, didn't fit me and my life.
* Almost everything that happened to me accidentally led to BETTER opportunities than anything I consciously planned to do when setting out.
* Without help from other people and government social programs, I'd be totally screwed.
* It takes a LOT of hard work to be a professional entertainer.
* I'm very happy to do crazy hard work to give other jugglers the opportunities that I had myself (Eg. running workshops, organizing shows and open stages, helping run conventions, creating the British Young Juggler of the Year show and competition, etc etc etc).
* I'm happy to pay taxes.
* I'm happy to support other artists financially if these need and/or ask for help.
Comments
Never moved back in with parents. My brother grudgingly let me stay with him for a few weeks when I got out of the army and I was in my own place shortly after that.
it is an anecdote about people who did bootstrap.
My parents were divorced, but I wouldn't be able to say that they didn't help me. One helped me less than the other after everything was said and done, but it's still a component of how I was clothed, fed, and sheltered for a long time.
I see where you are going with this and if we follow it all the way then even being brutally beaten by a couple of thugs can have a positive impact on your life if you learn something from the beating, even if the thing you learn is to avoid getting your ass beaten by thugs.
According to this type of reasoning no one can ever make it on their own unless they are alone for all of their existence. The mere act of interacting with someone other than themselves will have some impact on their life and thus negate the ability to claim to have made it on their own.
I also wonder about some other possibly odd comparisons. If two kids each open a lemonade stand, and one happens to turn it into an international soft-drink conglomerate while the other makes twenty-five cents due to the economic disparities of their respective communities - do we count that as an aid in itself?
Bootstrapping, as a term, is loaded. It refers to something that is impossible. A self made man/woman is possible and more in line with reality.
I think an even better term is "Successful man/woman". Or possibly "Awesomely successful man/woman".
That's not to say you shouldn't be proud of your achievements, not in the slightest. Take pride in what you did and give credit where credit is due (especially to yourself).
It's also possible to not need a single term to express what happened. For instance, you apparently definitely did a ton of hard work yourself to get where you are but at the same time took advantage of opportunities that arose around you.
EDIT: Clarification - "Self-made" is a pretty loaded term. There's a lot of sentiment, both good and bad, with it. Good is obvious, bad is that it can seem condescending and ignorant of other forces.
This is why I rail against phrasing like "I started with nothing" or "nobody ever gave me a damn thing." It's dishonest, and reflects on a person who is not actually looking at anything beyond themselves.
However, there is a lot to be said for having the wherewithal to realize the resources around you, tap them, and create something out of them. Modifying your situation into something better is the ultimate exercise is human ingenuity, and that is what we need to exalt and emphasize.
The people that tend to use the bootstrap, in my experience, tend to be somewhat successful straight white males, who started off in a fairly high income bracket and improved their situation a bit. They then use the bootstrap argument to look down on ALL poor people regardless of their situation, characterizing them as lazy or incompetent.
As a side note, the fact that Americans generally equate wealth with success is one of the things I hate the most about this country.
Can you really get all those grants you talked about? That's just more proof for this theory I've been working on: Europe >> U.S.
Personally, I'm no major success. I'm happy to have close to a net value of 0 currently (debts about equal to possessions).
Just remember that I had my car repossessed in college, went without substantial food for days at a time, and defaulted on a credit card. ;^)
The stories you don't hear are the everyday slow failures. Think about the guy who worked his ass off to start a small business. He pulled the bootstraps a thousand times as hard as any of the 1%. He's got loans to pay off. He makes less than what he could make being a janitor. When Wal-Mart opens, he's going out of business.
You know the Seinfeld episode about the Pakistani restaurant? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cafe_(Seinfeld) That's how 99% of bootstraps turn out. The easiest place to see it is in the arts. How many artists work crazy ridiculous hard their entire lives and never achieve any success? For every Justin Bieber there are 1000 nobodies that go on to live normal boring lives and you never hear about them, even though they worked just as hard, if not harder.
Do some people who work hard get success? Of course. The overwhelming majority of hard work has no payoff, and most often is a net loss.