Your sweeping, unsubstantiated generalizations aside (really, you can't even google a real life failure story, you have to rely on Seinfeld?), let me tell you a secret. Hard work actually isn't requisite for success. Some work is. Highly focused work is, but endless work for the sake of work most emphatically is not. Your argument might be restated as: I am highly unlikely to succeed so why try. I know you don't actually believe this because if you did why would you bother trying to live in NYC?
I was hoping this thread would contain more stories.
The reason it doesn't is because such stories are extremely rare. Most people who work crazy hard and try to pull themselves up fail and fail and fail because they don't have the lucky element that puts them over the top. You don't hear failure stories that often, because they aren't glamorous or interesting.
Are you kidding? The internet is full of #fail. Failure is everywhere on television. We love fail. I don't think people want to share success stories because they are personal and people don't always like to toot their own horns.
No, the Internet and TV are full of everyday fail. Like spilled milk fail. People like that kind of fail because they can relate to it. The only other failures you see are failures of self destruction or epic misfortune. People love self destruction stories because it's the only semblance of justice we get in this society. Like when a moron who shoves bottle rockets in his butt gets hurt. Epic misfortune is popular because it creates great sympathy, like when a natural disaster destroys a town and the evil insurance company won't cover it.
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.
Hard work work is a piece of the puzzle but you also need to work intelligently. trying to open a place and listening to a comedian who eats there once is not a sound strategy, you can work as hard as you want but poor decisions are still going to doom you.
Success stories are rare because if everyone succeeded it would mean nothing, success is a relative thing and there need to exist failures.
Your sweeping, unsubstantiated generalizations aside (really, you can't even google a real life failure story, you have to rely on Seinfeld?)
Life failures don't usually make Google. So, Earl, the mentally ill, substance abusing homeless guy who lives in a culvert on the north end of the park's life story can't be googled? Does that mean something to you? Does that mean that Earl doesn't exist?
Your sweeping, unsubstantiated generalizations aside (really, you can't even google a real life failure story, you have to rely on Seinfeld?), let me tell you a secret. Hard work actually isn't requisite for success. Some work is. Highly focused work is, but endless work for the sake of work most emphatically is not. Your argument might be restated as: I am highly unlikely to succeed so why try. I know you don't actually believe this because if you did why would you bother trying to live in NYC?
Uh, I'm not trying to live in NYC, I do live in NYC. I'm not living here because I'm panning for gold. I live here because there are jobs here, and to reduce commute time. Also because once you've lived in a major city it's just intolerable to live anywhere else. Every time I leave the city it's literally painful how you have to drive everywhere and there isn't even anywhere worth going.
As for a real story, how about any of the tens of businesses up where we lived in Beacon that opened and shut all up and down main street. Including the pizza place near us that three consecutive people failed on. Multiply that by every main street in the world.
Also, you are right. I don't believe that you shouldn't try because success is so unlikely. I believe you shouldn't try because the consequences of failure are so enormous. Do you know how many offers I get from startups? At least two a week. I have an enormous opportunity to just start my own business as well. The tech bubble hasn't burst yet. So why haven't I?
Because if I fail, which is still the most likely outcome, I will have no food, no home, no credit, and no health care. Add on top of that the serious detriment to my health from all that extra work. Because of that, I choose to play it safe with a regular 9 to 5 job. But in playing it safe, I'm also limited in potential.
You people seem to think that we're asking for people to live lives of luxury without having to work at all. Nobody is asking for that. That's what the lottery is for. All we want is that the basics be guaranteed when people fail. Food, shelter, education, and health care. If I could have those four things guaranteed no matter how hard I failed, then I would quit my job this instant and start trying.
I've met a lot of technology entrepreneurs in my day. I've asked all of them the same thing, and I always get the same answer. I ask them what they did about food, shelter, etc. when they were at the very beginning. Every single one I've asked, and I've asked nearly 100, was rich already. The one I remember most was Andrew Baron, from Rocketboom. He mumbled and didn't really want to admit it. He said his family supported him. The truth was that his father was a ridiculously wealthy and famous trial lawyer, Fred Baron.
All of these people, like Andrew, were free to work hard and do that focused work to achieve success because their consequences for failure were low. He would never be without food, shelter, or health care no matter how badly he failed. He could afford to try over and over and over again for his entire life without ever going hungry. Because he had the freedom to try without worry, he was able to fully concentrate, give a real effort, and get the success. I absolutely can not do the same thing because my consequences for failure are so dire.
Now compare that to the pizza guy with the failed pizza restaurant who lost his house to foreclosure, got in family in the car and left town. Nobody is asking for a free ride on a private jet. We just want to lighten the consequences of failure, so that we can afford to try.
Well, Scott we make our choices and we roll the dice. I don't want to pay for your safety net. I didn't have a safety net either and there were close calls. And you know what? The close calls aren't over. If I'm going to bear the load of being the 1% rep here, I should tell you that it is a near thing. I'm barely there and if I get sick, it's over. If a competitor comes in and is better smarter faster, my cheese might get moved. Any number of horrible catastrophes could wreck my life. If I got bogged down in that, how could I fight it? Instead I try to grow and develop and stay in the game.
That fear of failure can be extremely motivating. Take that away and what have you got for an incentive? Incentive is a very powerful thing. I have a friend who is a dentist who works like one day a week. He has 4 kids and a wife who is also a dentist but who sees fewer patients than he does.
The point of mentioning him is that if you can work hard for even a little bit, you can have what you want, if that's what you want. Oh and Joe, he is Korean and his wife is Japanese if you are going to play the race card again.
Thaed, you can always sell your Porsche for some quick cash... and failure for you is probably an upper middle class existence, not exactly destitute on the street.
That fear of failure can be extremely motivating. Take that away and what have you got for an incentive?
Wow, that's some pretty fucked up reasoning right there.
Fear is a terrible motivator. The most successful people out there don't fear failure - they learn to embrace it and move on. If you live in fear of your failures, you will chicken out and fail to take a necessary risk at some point. That is essentially dooming a vast majority to failure. You'll trigger survival instincts, and those will take over the rational brain.
You might be wary of failure, you may take steps to mitigate it, or you may prepare to get nailed by it. But if you're going to be successful, under no circumstances do you fear it. There are other incentives out there.
I didn't have a safety net either
You've lost on this point. Move on. Yes, you had a safety net. Parents. Schools. Guidance counselors. Unemployment insurance.
This is, again, a bullshit argument. You are objectively incorrect. And the reason I will harp on this forever? Because you use it to justify this:
I don't want to pay for your safety net.
I largely agree with your views on self-starting highly-motivated successful people, all the way until you say you didn't get help. Or you didn't have a safety net. Reality begs to differ.
My bootstrap pulling skills: * I didn't originally plan to be a Geologist, it was a peripheral result from associating my interest in the environment with my studies. * Once I settled on the career, I worked hard to be the best GEO MO-FO ev4r!
Help I had along the way: * Parents constantly giving encouragement from day one. * Student loans. * Communal living with friends throughout uni. * A credit card... in retrospect, I would not recommend that option as "I will only use it to facilitate studies in Japan" quickly became "new graphics card... that's a learning expense" * Riding peers coat-tails into casual jobs at uni. * Volunteering helped immeasurably with networking.
Conclusion: * Almost everything I rationally decided to do, career-wise, fit perfectly into my life as long as small concessions were made. * Almost everything that happened to me accidentally led to better opportunities than anything I consciously planned to do when setting out DEPENDING ON MY OUTLOOK, if I was super positive about the situation, then positive results tended to follow. * Help from other people was a key instigator for success. * I'm very happy to travel around Asia, peripherally to my direct stream of income, to work on projects with peers. This leads to more papers, and more bunks in Asia when my partner and I travel. * I'm happy to pay taxes.
Also, my first car was a yellow Volvo GL440. Its easy to go up from there
Dude, what do you want me to say? That I'm worthless and weak? Sorry, go find another victim.
No, I want you to fucking stop thinking that seeking help makes you worthless and weak. It's not fucking true, and it's a sociopathic mindset. What you're espousing is self-delusion. You literally would not exist if not for a vast network of resources that enabled you to get where you are. You were helped. And it doesn't make you weak.
Weakness isn't the inability to succeed, it's the unwillingness to attempt to succeed. And strength is not measured by success, it's measured by the willingness to approach a challenge, whether or not you will (or can) succeed. It doesn't matter if you have help or do it alone or what have you: true failures fail no matter the circumstances, because they've already defeated themselves.
Maybe we have different standards as to what we think constitutes excellence. The impression I get is that you think being an independent self-starter who can succeed without any help is excellence. That we should strive for that.
I think that situation is godhood. Reality is deterministic. To act independently of the chain of causality is outright impossible, and to come even close to it requires an almost otherworldly prowess.
Excellence is seeing the resources around you, and using those to create opportunities for yourself and for other people. That's what we should be striving for - the godhood thing is unrealistic in the extreme. In a way, I think you're actually too pessimistic with your views of accomplishment - you're not actually giving enough credit to what people manage to do, even with help.
Well, Scott we make our choices and we roll the dice. I don't want to pay for your safety net. I didn't have a safety net either and there were close calls. And you know what? The close calls aren't over. If I'm going to bear the load of being the 1% rep here, I should tell you that it is a near thing. I'm barely there and if I get sick, it's over. If a competitor comes in and is better smarter faster, my cheese might get moved. Any number of horrible catastrophes could wreck my life. If I got bogged down in that, how could I fight it? Instead I try to grow and develop and stay in the game.
That is complete bullshit. To be in the %1 you need at minimum $380,000 per year from what I have read most recently. If I had that salary, then in just three years I would have a million in the bank. With a million dollars in cash I could live for 20 years without ever having to work for even one minute. I'll be a 50 year old man at that time. Unless you go to a casino and put your entire life savings on the roulette wheel you have absolutely no risk whatsoever. Even if the cheese got moved to the far side of Jupiter, you would be just fine.
You don't want the pay for the safety net? That's why we can, and should, "take it from you at gunpoint" as the libertarians like to say. The right to food, shelter, education and health are more universal and more important rights than the right to property.
Thousands of people are starving and homeless out there. They did nothing wrong other than pull real hard on their bootstraps, just like you wanted. Only 99 out of 100 times the straps break. You've got enough cash to provide for ten or more families. All we're asking is that you only keep enough for maybe eight or nine so a few people can try to pull again.
It's all about risk. And like I said in the first post. You are in the 1%, nothing you say really matters. You have absolutely no comprehension of actual risk. Us 99% are risking our lives, literally. You're risking your sports car and some numbers in a computer getting smaller. Wall street failed tragically, and got bonuses and bailouts. Joe's bodega failed, he couldn't afford health care, now he's dead and/or homeless.
All we want is that when you fail you suffer the same consequences. If you don't want to give us a safety net so that our consequences are the same as yours are, then let's make your consequences the same as ours. Oh, you had a business failure and lost $10k? We're going take your house, your car, and your health care. That should be ok with you, since you can pull yourself right back up.
My bootstrap pulling skills: * I didn't originally plan to be in computing. I have a BA in Philosophy, and worked for a number of years in small nonprofit administration, and when the internet wave took off I rode it into high performance computing. * I've leveraged my employee benefits at a university to expand my education, so now I'm credentialed in software development and working on a Masters degree in business. * I'm always bugging people to train me in new stuff, let me take on new responsibilities. This tends to promote career advancement.
Help I've had along the way: * Most of it is inextricably linked with bootstrap pulling above. I couldn't get myself the bootstraps, I could only pull the ones that people gave me, or helped me make. * Parents who paid my undergraduate tuition and helped with living expenses as well. * Colleagues and mentors who continue to help me sort out and pursue opportunities as they present themselves. * An affordable education from a public university, and no-charge-at-service K-12 education at schools with high achieving students, and high expectations. * True partnership with my spouse and family wrt childcare. The internet wave was rising at the same time that I had a small child. I couldn't have pursued the opportunities that I did if I'd been shouldering more than half the responsibility for childcare, grocery shopping, housework, etc.
Conclusions: Nobody really does this alone. And it's a hell of a lot of work in any case.
Also: My father was a first-generation college student, who grew up dirt-poor in rural Minnesota. His high-school principal mentored him through the college admissions and financial aid process. Without this mentorship, my dad's professional life might have been quite different, and in turn I probably wouldn't have had as many options open to me. I consider myself in debt to this principal.
Whaleshark, did I say that asking for help makes you weak? I don't believe I did because that would be wrong. This is the bootstrap, thread, right? I'm losing track of them.
I love this place because if we all got together IRL we'd be talking about Skyrim over beer and otherwise geeking out. In other words, the geek demographic takes all kinds politically.
Scott has the balls to say that he's willing to take from me by force. That's what it takes because I'm not going to help people other than via charities that I believe in. Scott is being tragically honest. Yet there is nothing new under the sun. The Soviets and Chinese went all in on that and Stalin and Mao allowed 10s of millions of people to starve to death. The ends justify the means, right Scott? So time goes by and what do we have over there? Fascist states with elements of capitalism to keep things running.
You're welcome to move to China or Russia Scott. Good luck.
No, it's a Kibbutz. And again, if that's how you want to live, go for it but stop trying to steal from me, man. When I was your age, I had less than you and more debt on top of it. When you're my age, you'll probably have more money than I do. Then I'm going to take my walker and chase you around central park for being such a jackass when you were a young punk!
Whaleshark, did I say that asking for help makes you weak?
That's how I interpreted this response:
Dude, what do you want me to say? That I'm worthless and weak? Sorry, go find another victim.
I don't think I was making an argument that could be interpreted as necessitating weakness. I'm just pushing on the same point I've made earlier, which is that it's factually incorrect, self-deluding, and harmful to say "I did this without a safety net."
Unless your response was intended to mean something else. To be honest, it's sort of an out-of-left-field answer.
This isn't boot-strapping so much as just sharing.
On one side of my family, my grandfather was a double-pensioner (military/post-office) and my grandmother was a post-master for a small post-office. On the other side was a union plumber and a waitress.
My mother and father had me when my mother was in college at age 20. She dropped out, and started working with him at a pizza restaurant. We started out living in a fairly shoddy little townhouse.
Around age 4, my grandparents on my mother's side helped finance the purchase of a pre-fab home in a fairly nice little neighborhood about 20 miles outside St. Louis. Suburbia. I believe my parents made payments on it, but there were some family disputes about who owned it when it was sold 12 years later.
I actually was put into a special program for violent kids at age 5. A lot of those problems came from not having interacted with other kids my age ever before that. I had a nintendo, with Zelda, Mario, Cobra Triangle, Dragon Warrior, and RC Pro AM. Those I remember the most. I was kicked out of school for the first time then. I was also threatened with a knife for the first time by the kid that was held back a year. My grandparents took me to Disney Land once.
Around my age of 7, my father started a pizzaria in downtown St. Louis. His start-up money came from his mother and father's retirement savings. He took on business partners for extra funding when things were getting rough. They pushed him out of the business, and liquidated it. There were also drug abuse related issues I care not to get into. This was over the course of 2 years or so. This essentially ruined my grandparents for quite a while (the end result being they sold their house).
Around 8, my grandparents on my mothers side bought a 133 mhz HP computer. That was my first computer to play around with (every Tuesday I would go over to their place and use it all day after school). I played a ton of Master of Orion II on that. Discovered the internet (or AOL).
I was put into the "advanced" classes at some point. My grades were always near-perfect and I tested well. But I got into a lot of trouble, and often found other things more interesting than class. My first "C" was in 3rd grade because half our grade was just correcting sentences off a projector for an hour a day. I explained on multiple occations that "I get it, but it's boring."
That started a sort of trend. If I was interested in something or challenged by it: A or A+. If it was tedious or menial: C. This followed me all through high school and college.
My parents divorced at 11, on the day after my birthday. Or at least, that's when they split. I lived with my mom, occationally saw my dad, and he tried quite a bit to avoid paying child support dues. So we became a single-income family.
Around 13 I joined the Civil Air Patrol thanks to help from my Grandfather on my mother's side. I wanted to be a fighter pilot. My time in that organization is a story of its own, but suffice it to say I'm very good at certain components of the military and incredibly poor at others.
My grandmother got me a job in Highschool working at an italian restaurant as a bus-boy and in the kitchen. It paid great for that time. I also couldn't get my learner's permit because my mother refused to help me drive. I actually didn't get licensed till I was 18 over the summer after graduating. I lost my job after a year because my family went on vacation and I stayed to work, but my ride bailed on me that night. I couldn't get there (it was a good 20 miles away) so I was fired.
I finished highschool, went to a state college that was about 200 miles away, and received student loans to cover the expense beyond the scholarships and credits I was given for ~$5000/year. I accumulated ~$20000 in debt by the time I was done.
I tried to finish college twice, but both times I was killed by my inability to study things I found boring. I stood by my rule of never working on something I wasn't interested in. So I had very high grades in most of my CS courses (save the linux one where we just had to open read and use man pages all day). I had high grades in my philosophy classes, and stuck to it enough to have a minor. I had terrible grades in a number of electives though, and this removed me twice.
Then I lucked into a programming job in town. I've stayed with that company for three years now. As lucky as I was to find a job in my field, the job has also been lucky to find me. I've saved them a hundred grand or so this year, in addition to the software I've built, and I think I've demonstrated time and again that I'm worth more than they pay me.
No, it's a Kibbutz. And again, if that's how you want to live, go for it but stop trying to steal from me, man. When I was your age, I had less than you and more debt on top of it. When you're my age, you'll probably have more money than I do. Then I'm going to take my walker and chase you around central park for being such a jackass when you were a young punk!
I'll never have more money than you. Our generations are the first since the depression to be worse off than the previous generations. Even if I did make some cash, I would never keep the amount of money you have to myself. If I made $380,000 a year, almost all of it would be given away. What the fuck would I even do with all that money? I already buy absolutely everything I want, and save for retirement, and live in NYC, and I don't even make $100k. With more money I would probably just retire earlier and stop working, which seems to be the exact opposite of what you want.
"Worthless and weak" is a movie line from Animal House. It is not weak to ask for help. I think you and I are very close on a lot of points, but my language offends you. You're punishing me still for using the "started with nothing" comment. How about the following instead:
--born to unwed mother. --did the best he could. --no money for college. --worked full time went to school full time. --became lawyer and worked hard (not the top of his class either). --6 years of plugging away and some side interests led to an opportunity. --took advantage of opportunity and worked harder. --after 20 years of being lawyer, doing what he would consider to be reasonably well.
That's about as simple as I can make it. Did I have help. Of course! We are here on this planet with each other. It is both heaven and hell. Do you need others for success, yes. Does that somehow justify government safety nets? No.
If I made $380,000 a year, almost all of it would be given away. What the fuck would I even do with all that money? I already buy absolutely everything I want, and save for retirement, and live in NYC, and I don't even make $100k.
With more money I would probably just retire earlier and stop working, which seems to be the exact opposite of what you want.
So which would it be? Give the money away or retire early?
If I made $380,000 a year, almost all of it would be given away. What the fuck would I even do with all that money? I already buy absolutely everything I want, and save for retirement, and live in NYC, and I don't even make $100k.
With more money I would probably just retire earlier and stop working, which seems to be the exact opposite of what you want.
So which would it be? Give the money away or retire early?
And Scott, do you really believe that the generational nonsense applies to you? You already have 1% skills, education & experience. With your skills and RIT diploma, you'd have to be an idiot not to be in the 1% in 20 years.
Yes, slightly. And who said I didn't have debt? I had debt but I paid it off over time. No matter what your income bracket is, frugal living is a wonderful idea. Merits its own thread in fact.
Here's my overall story, which includes bootstrapping:
I grew up fairly poor, in rural upstate New York. Now, mind you, we weren't poor relative to everyone else around us - the degree of poverty we had was kind of the norm up in Crown Point. That's what you get when you live in a rural mountain town with no industry, no commerce, and a small population.
Before Crown Point, my parents lived in Hague, which is an even smaller town about 45 minutes south of where I grew up. Dad was a park ranger who was seasonally employed. During the winter months, both of my parents survived on employment benefits and food stamps. They were poor but happy.
Mom and dad moved to Crown Point after dad got a job with the International Paper mill in Ticonderoga. The mill was the single largest source of significant employment for about an hour's drive in any direction from Crown Point. He didn't make a lot - somewhere around $10/hour in 1986, which grew to a massive $13/hour before he lost his job in 2002/2003 - but it was just enough for us to get by. Mom eventually had to start working, once my younger brother was old enough to go to school on his own. I want to say that was around 1990.
We didn't have lots of amenities - our clothes came from thrift stores, donations, relatives, and hand-me-downs - but we managed. The house we lived in was heated in part by a wood stove, so that kept expenses down. My parents also received some financial help from their parents.
The public school system where I grew up was shit. This is the result of having incredibly low property values - property taxes don't exactly give great funding for a good school. My parents chose to send me to a private Catholic school from grades 3 - 8, so that I could get a better education. They couldn't actually afford the tuition, so the school gave them a break on it. Between that and assistance from their parents, they managed to send me and both of my siblings to this school.
I didn't have an easy adolescence - I don't think anyone really does - and I was bullied and/or picked on with great frequency. That's what you get for being fat and smart, I suppose. I had few friends, and I was angry and antisocial most of the time. I would lash out at people for no good reason, and my Catholic school-induced guilt made me feel like a terrible person for being angry and lashing out. That just fed the whole situation, and it created this wonderful downward spiral.
By 6th grade I wanted to die on a daily basis. I came close to doing it a couple of times, and I can still remember one day at home when I was poised to kill myself, and elected not to. Of course, because I was still a fervent believer, I didn't express my problems. That's not what Jesus would have done - he would have struggled and suffered and become stronger for it. And I really wanted to be like him, so I kept it all inside and cried myself to sleep every night.
I had a nervous breakdown sometime in 7th or 8th grade, and that's when people found out about my problems. Counselors didn't help too much - the ones I knew were pretty self-absorbed. I slowly started realizing that people have fundamental problems relating to each other, because we have an inability or unwillingness to step outside of our own problems. This realization started developing after the breakdown, and grew through 10th or 11th grade.
That's when I also started abandoning my faith. Years of prayers never brought me any solace, and when I stopped caring about having them answered, I started feeling better about myself. I felt as though I'd cast aside a crutch and started walking on my own.
I didn't have many friends in high school (or so I thought), and there was some minor bullying still. I remained reserved and didn't really interact with anyone until 12th grade.
And that's when realization hit me: when I reached out and started interacting with other people, I found out that I had more friends than I thought I did. I started developing a social network at home, and my social skills started growing. I wish it had happened much earlier, but hey, better late than never. Even some of the kids who picked on me in grade school were actually friends - I just didn't quite get it because I always lashed out instead of reached out.
Despite the lack of opportunities at my high school - what the hell were AP classes? - I managed to get into a pretty good school, and there I met some of my best friends ever. I also learned good life skills and gained employability. The stories from college alone would occupy a thread unto itself.
I graduated college in May 2004, and not finding a job right away, I lived back at home for a while. I wound up going back to work at my perpetual summer job at a local deli. The pay wasn't glamorous, and it didn't use my degree, but $5.75/hour was more than 0.
When dad died that December, my life was shattered again. I was lost and crushed, and it seemed hopeless. I'll spare the full details, because there is an incredible amount of emotion bound up in the situation. However, friends of mine had been talking about getting the hell out of upstate and moving down to Albany, where there would be jobs and the potential to do something. I jumped on board, and went downstate with virtually no job prospects.
Before leaving, I had taken a civil service exam, to be put on the Lab Technician list. My uncle - who is a senior parole officer in Suffolk county - had forwarded the information to me. What the hell, I figured. This could yield something.
I interviewed for a position as a deli clerk at a Hannaford near the apartment that the 3 of us had. They almost didn't give me the job because I was grossly over-qualified, but it wound up not mattering, as I got a job as a lab tech as a result of my civil service exam! I started my career in civil service in March of 2005, and I've progressed steadily since then.
Lots of things have changed since I really got started out here - I've lived on my own since 2006; I've struggled with some intense demons as a result of dad's death (and I still struggle with it to this day); I've dated a few different women and had good and bad experiences with that; I've lost and re-gained 40 pounds; I've taken up beer brewing; I've set aside old hobbies but still cling to the hope that I can restart them; I've grown apart from some friends, grown closer to others, found brand new friends; I've met and fallen in love with an incredible woman; and I'm still fucking here.
-I came from a low-income household in an area that provided no opportunity for advancement
-I had a loving, caring, and supportive family who helped give me the tools I have today
-My family wouldn't have made it if not for social welfare and the help of friends and family
-I wouldn't have made it if not for the help of friends and family, and for robust social programs - I am, after all, paid by tax dollars.
-I am to be credited with the perseverance that enabled me to get to where I am today
-Of all the decisions I've made, I'd say the one to not kill myself was probably the one I owned the most - I'm sure there is a confluence of circumstances that led to that deterministic result, but the chain of causality is sufficiently complex that I can justify considering myself to be a first actor in that situation
-I'm still going today, and I'm surrounded by plenty of resources that I tap today, and will continue to tap in the future, to continue propelling myself forward
-Losing a loved one, especially a parent, is probably one of the hardest goddamn things that can happen to you
-No matter what, perseverance is a huge factor in success
-"Success" is a relative term - money's not everything, as they say
And Scott, do you really believe that the generational nonsense applies to you? You already have 1% skills, education & experience. With your skills and RIT diploma, you'd have to be an idiot not to be in the 1% in 20 years.
My greed is so small that it can't even come close to denting my risk averseness. I am extremely comfortable and have almost everything I could ever want. You can't even buy me a gift because there is nothing I want that I can't just get with a few clicks. To enter the 1% I would have to risk my life. Why in the hell would I risk my life just to get more useless paper with pictures of dead presidents on it? Maybe if you gave me a nice safety net to remove my risk of death, I would be willing to go all out.
Send me a check for my annual salary. It's probably less than your grocery bill. You won't even notice it's gone. I'll spend an entire year making things that could be viable businesses. I'll give you 100% of everything I make during the year since I'll already have enough money for the year. See how hard people work when the risk is lower?
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Success stories are rare because if everyone succeeded it would mean nothing, success is a relative thing and there need to exist failures.
As for a real story, how about any of the tens of businesses up where we lived in Beacon that opened and shut all up and down main street. Including the pizza place near us that three consecutive people failed on. Multiply that by every main street in the world.
Also, you are right. I don't believe that you shouldn't try because success is so unlikely. I believe you shouldn't try because the consequences of failure are so enormous. Do you know how many offers I get from startups? At least two a week. I have an enormous opportunity to just start my own business as well. The tech bubble hasn't burst yet. So why haven't I?
Because if I fail, which is still the most likely outcome, I will have no food, no home, no credit, and no health care. Add on top of that the serious detriment to my health from all that extra work. Because of that, I choose to play it safe with a regular 9 to 5 job. But in playing it safe, I'm also limited in potential.
You people seem to think that we're asking for people to live lives of luxury without having to work at all. Nobody is asking for that. That's what the lottery is for. All we want is that the basics be guaranteed when people fail. Food, shelter, education, and health care. If I could have those four things guaranteed no matter how hard I failed, then I would quit my job this instant and start trying.
I've met a lot of technology entrepreneurs in my day. I've asked all of them the same thing, and I always get the same answer. I ask them what they did about food, shelter, etc. when they were at the very beginning. Every single one I've asked, and I've asked nearly 100, was rich already. The one I remember most was Andrew Baron, from Rocketboom. He mumbled and didn't really want to admit it. He said his family supported him. The truth was that his father was a ridiculously wealthy and famous trial lawyer, Fred Baron.
All of these people, like Andrew, were free to work hard and do that focused work to achieve success because their consequences for failure were low. He would never be without food, shelter, or health care no matter how badly he failed. He could afford to try over and over and over again for his entire life without ever going hungry. Because he had the freedom to try without worry, he was able to fully concentrate, give a real effort, and get the success. I absolutely can not do the same thing because my consequences for failure are so dire.
Now compare that to the pizza guy with the failed pizza restaurant who lost his house to foreclosure, got in family in the car and left town. Nobody is asking for a free ride on a private jet. We just want to lighten the consequences of failure, so that we can afford to try.
That's pretty much the win comment in this thread, right there.
That fear of failure can be extremely motivating. Take that away and what have you got for an incentive? Incentive is a very powerful thing. I have a friend who is a dentist who works like one day a week. He has 4 kids and a wife who is also a dentist but who sees fewer patients than he does.
The point of mentioning him is that if you can work hard for even a little bit, you can have what you want, if that's what you want. Oh and Joe, he is Korean and his wife is Japanese if you are going to play the race card again.
Fear is a terrible motivator. The most successful people out there don't fear failure - they learn to embrace it and move on. If you live in fear of your failures, you will chicken out and fail to take a necessary risk at some point. That is essentially dooming a vast majority to failure. You'll trigger survival instincts, and those will take over the rational brain.
You might be wary of failure, you may take steps to mitigate it, or you may prepare to get nailed by it. But if you're going to be successful, under no circumstances do you fear it. There are other incentives out there. You've lost on this point. Move on. Yes, you had a safety net. Parents. Schools. Guidance counselors. Unemployment insurance.
This is, again, a bullshit argument. You are objectively incorrect. And the reason I will harp on this forever? Because you use it to justify this: I largely agree with your views on self-starting highly-motivated successful people, all the way until you say you didn't get help. Or you didn't have a safety net. Reality begs to differ.
My bootstrap pulling skills:
* I didn't originally plan to be a Geologist, it was a peripheral result from associating my interest in the environment with my studies.
* Once I settled on the career, I worked hard to be the best GEO MO-FO ev4r!
Help I had along the way:
* Parents constantly giving encouragement from day one.
* Student loans.
* Communal living with friends throughout uni.
* A credit card... in retrospect, I would not recommend that option as "I will only use it to facilitate studies in Japan" quickly became "new graphics card... that's a learning expense"
* Riding peers coat-tails into casual jobs at uni.
* Volunteering helped immeasurably with networking.
Conclusion:
* Almost everything I rationally decided to do, career-wise, fit perfectly into my life as long as small concessions were made.
* Almost everything that happened to me accidentally led to better opportunities than anything I consciously planned to do when setting out DEPENDING ON MY OUTLOOK, if I was super positive about the situation, then positive results tended to follow.
* Help from other people was a key instigator for success.
* I'm very happy to travel around Asia, peripherally to my direct stream of income, to work on projects with peers. This leads to more papers, and more bunks in Asia when my partner and I travel.
* I'm happy to pay taxes.
Also, my first car was a yellow Volvo GL440. Its easy to go up from there
Weakness isn't the inability to succeed, it's the unwillingness to attempt to succeed. And strength is not measured by success, it's measured by the willingness to approach a challenge, whether or not you will (or can) succeed. It doesn't matter if you have help or do it alone or what have you: true failures fail no matter the circumstances, because they've already defeated themselves.
Maybe we have different standards as to what we think constitutes excellence. The impression I get is that you think being an independent self-starter who can succeed without any help is excellence. That we should strive for that.
I think that situation is godhood. Reality is deterministic. To act independently of the chain of causality is outright impossible, and to come even close to it requires an almost otherworldly prowess.
Excellence is seeing the resources around you, and using those to create opportunities for yourself and for other people. That's what we should be striving for - the godhood thing is unrealistic in the extreme. In a way, I think you're actually too pessimistic with your views of accomplishment - you're not actually giving enough credit to what people manage to do, even with help.
You don't want the pay for the safety net? That's why we can, and should, "take it from you at gunpoint" as the libertarians like to say. The right to food, shelter, education and health are more universal and more important rights than the right to property.
Thousands of people are starving and homeless out there. They did nothing wrong other than pull real hard on their bootstraps, just like you wanted. Only 99 out of 100 times the straps break. You've got enough cash to provide for ten or more families. All we're asking is that you only keep enough for maybe eight or nine so a few people can try to pull again.
It's all about risk. And like I said in the first post. You are in the 1%, nothing you say really matters. You have absolutely no comprehension of actual risk. Us 99% are risking our lives, literally. You're risking your sports car and some numbers in a computer getting smaller. Wall street failed tragically, and got bonuses and bailouts. Joe's bodega failed, he couldn't afford health care, now he's dead and/or homeless.
All we want is that when you fail you suffer the same consequences. If you don't want to give us a safety net so that our consequences are the same as yours are, then let's make your consequences the same as ours. Oh, you had a business failure and lost $10k? We're going take your house, your car, and your health care. That should be ok with you, since you can pull yourself right back up.
* I didn't originally plan to be in computing. I have a BA in Philosophy, and worked for a number of years in small nonprofit administration, and when the internet wave took off I rode it into high performance computing.
* I've leveraged my employee benefits at a university to expand my education, so now I'm credentialed in software development and working on a Masters degree in business.
* I'm always bugging people to train me in new stuff, let me take on new responsibilities. This tends to promote career advancement.
Help I've had along the way:
* Most of it is inextricably linked with bootstrap pulling above. I couldn't get myself the bootstraps, I could only pull the ones that people gave me, or helped me make.
* Parents who paid my undergraduate tuition and helped with living expenses as well.
* Colleagues and mentors who continue to help me sort out and pursue opportunities as they present themselves.
* An affordable education from a public university, and no-charge-at-service K-12 education at schools with high achieving students, and high expectations.
* True partnership with my spouse and family wrt childcare. The internet wave was rising at the same time that I had a small child. I couldn't have pursued the opportunities that I did if I'd been shouldering more than half the responsibility for childcare, grocery shopping, housework, etc.
Conclusions: Nobody really does this alone. And it's a hell of a lot of work in any case.
Also: My father was a first-generation college student, who grew up dirt-poor in rural Minnesota. His high-school principal mentored him through the college admissions and financial aid process. Without this mentorship, my dad's professional life might have been quite different, and in turn I probably wouldn't have had as many options open to me. I consider myself in debt to this principal.
I love this place because if we all got together IRL we'd be talking about Skyrim over beer and otherwise geeking out. In other words, the geek demographic takes all kinds politically.
Scott has the balls to say that he's willing to take from me by force. That's what it takes because I'm not going to help people other than via charities that I believe in. Scott is being tragically honest. Yet there is nothing new under the sun. The Soviets and Chinese went all in on that and Stalin and Mao allowed 10s of millions of people to starve to death. The ends justify the means, right Scott? So time goes by and what do we have over there? Fascist states with elements of capitalism to keep things running.
You're welcome to move to China or Russia Scott. Good luck.
Unless your response was intended to mean something else. To be honest, it's sort of an out-of-left-field answer.
On one side of my family, my grandfather was a double-pensioner (military/post-office) and my grandmother was a post-master for a small post-office. On the other side was a union plumber and a waitress.
My mother and father had me when my mother was in college at age 20. She dropped out, and started working with him at a pizza restaurant. We started out living in a fairly shoddy little townhouse.
Around age 4, my grandparents on my mother's side helped finance the purchase of a pre-fab home in a fairly nice little neighborhood about 20 miles outside St. Louis. Suburbia. I believe my parents made payments on it, but there were some family disputes about who owned it when it was sold 12 years later.
I actually was put into a special program for violent kids at age 5. A lot of those problems came from not having interacted with other kids my age ever before that. I had a nintendo, with Zelda, Mario, Cobra Triangle, Dragon Warrior, and RC Pro AM. Those I remember the most. I was kicked out of school for the first time then. I was also threatened with a knife for the first time by the kid that was held back a year. My grandparents took me to Disney Land once.
Around my age of 7, my father started a pizzaria in downtown St. Louis. His start-up money came from his mother and father's retirement savings. He took on business partners for extra funding when things were getting rough. They pushed him out of the business, and liquidated it. There were also drug abuse related issues I care not to get into. This was over the course of 2 years or so. This essentially ruined my grandparents for quite a while (the end result being they sold their house).
Around 8, my grandparents on my mothers side bought a 133 mhz HP computer. That was my first computer to play around with (every Tuesday I would go over to their place and use it all day after school). I played a ton of Master of Orion II on that. Discovered the internet (or AOL).
I was put into the "advanced" classes at some point. My grades were always near-perfect and I tested well. But I got into a lot of trouble, and often found other things more interesting than class. My first "C" was in 3rd grade because half our grade was just correcting sentences off a projector for an hour a day. I explained on multiple occations that "I get it, but it's boring."
That started a sort of trend. If I was interested in something or challenged by it: A or A+. If it was tedious or menial: C. This followed me all through high school and college.
My parents divorced at 11, on the day after my birthday. Or at least, that's when they split. I lived with my mom, occationally saw my dad, and he tried quite a bit to avoid paying child support dues. So we became a single-income family.
Around 13 I joined the Civil Air Patrol thanks to help from my Grandfather on my mother's side. I wanted to be a fighter pilot. My time in that organization is a story of its own, but suffice it to say I'm very good at certain components of the military and incredibly poor at others.
My grandmother got me a job in Highschool working at an italian restaurant as a bus-boy and in the kitchen. It paid great for that time. I also couldn't get my learner's permit because my mother refused to help me drive. I actually didn't get licensed till I was 18 over the summer after graduating. I lost my job after a year because my family went on vacation and I stayed to work, but my ride bailed on me that night. I couldn't get there (it was a good 20 miles away) so I was fired.
I finished highschool, went to a state college that was about 200 miles away, and received student loans to cover the expense beyond the scholarships and credits I was given for ~$5000/year. I accumulated ~$20000 in debt by the time I was done.
I tried to finish college twice, but both times I was killed by my inability to study things I found boring. I stood by my rule of never working on something I wasn't interested in. So I had very high grades in most of my CS courses (save the linux one where we just had to open read and use man pages all day). I had high grades in my philosophy classes, and stuck to it enough to have a minor. I had terrible grades in a number of electives though, and this removed me twice.
Then I lucked into a programming job in town. I've stayed with that company for three years now. As lucky as I was to find a job in my field, the job has also been lucky to find me. I've saved them a hundred grand or so this year, in addition to the software I've built, and I think I've demonstrated time and again that I'm worth more than they pay me.
--born to unwed mother.
--did the best he could.
--no money for college.
--worked full time went to school full time.
--became lawyer and worked hard (not the top of his class either).
--6 years of plugging away and some side interests led to an opportunity.
--took advantage of opportunity and worked harder.
--after 20 years of being lawyer, doing what he would consider to be reasonably well.
That's about as simple as I can make it. Did I have help. Of course! We are here on this planet with each other. It is both heaven and hell. Do you need others for success, yes. Does that somehow justify government safety nets? No.
Because people can't do that any more without going into debt.
I grew up fairly poor, in rural upstate New York. Now, mind you, we weren't poor relative to everyone else around us - the degree of poverty we had was kind of the norm up in Crown Point. That's what you get when you live in a rural mountain town with no industry, no commerce, and a small population.
Before Crown Point, my parents lived in Hague, which is an even smaller town about 45 minutes south of where I grew up. Dad was a park ranger who was seasonally employed. During the winter months, both of my parents survived on employment benefits and food stamps. They were poor but happy.
Mom and dad moved to Crown Point after dad got a job with the International Paper mill in Ticonderoga. The mill was the single largest source of significant employment for about an hour's drive in any direction from Crown Point. He didn't make a lot - somewhere around $10/hour in 1986, which grew to a massive $13/hour before he lost his job in 2002/2003 - but it was just enough for us to get by. Mom eventually had to start working, once my younger brother was old enough to go to school on his own. I want to say that was around 1990.
We didn't have lots of amenities - our clothes came from thrift stores, donations, relatives, and hand-me-downs - but we managed. The house we lived in was heated in part by a wood stove, so that kept expenses down. My parents also received some financial help from their parents.
The public school system where I grew up was shit. This is the result of having incredibly low property values - property taxes don't exactly give great funding for a good school. My parents chose to send me to a private Catholic school from grades 3 - 8, so that I could get a better education. They couldn't actually afford the tuition, so the school gave them a break on it. Between that and assistance from their parents, they managed to send me and both of my siblings to this school.
I didn't have an easy adolescence - I don't think anyone really does - and I was bullied and/or picked on with great frequency. That's what you get for being fat and smart, I suppose. I had few friends, and I was angry and antisocial most of the time. I would lash out at people for no good reason, and my Catholic school-induced guilt made me feel like a terrible person for being angry and lashing out. That just fed the whole situation, and it created this wonderful downward spiral.
By 6th grade I wanted to die on a daily basis. I came close to doing it a couple of times, and I can still remember one day at home when I was poised to kill myself, and elected not to. Of course, because I was still a fervent believer, I didn't express my problems. That's not what Jesus would have done - he would have struggled and suffered and become stronger for it. And I really wanted to be like him, so I kept it all inside and cried myself to sleep every night.
I had a nervous breakdown sometime in 7th or 8th grade, and that's when people found out about my problems. Counselors didn't help too much - the ones I knew were pretty self-absorbed. I slowly started realizing that people have fundamental problems relating to each other, because we have an inability or unwillingness to step outside of our own problems. This realization started developing after the breakdown, and grew through 10th or 11th grade.
That's when I also started abandoning my faith. Years of prayers never brought me any solace, and when I stopped caring about having them answered, I started feeling better about myself. I felt as though I'd cast aside a crutch and started walking on my own.
I didn't have many friends in high school (or so I thought), and there was some minor bullying still. I remained reserved and didn't really interact with anyone until 12th grade.
And that's when realization hit me: when I reached out and started interacting with other people, I found out that I had more friends than I thought I did. I started developing a social network at home, and my social skills started growing. I wish it had happened much earlier, but hey, better late than never. Even some of the kids who picked on me in grade school were actually friends - I just didn't quite get it because I always lashed out instead of reached out.
Despite the lack of opportunities at my high school - what the hell were AP classes? - I managed to get into a pretty good school, and there I met some of my best friends ever. I also learned good life skills and gained employability. The stories from college alone would occupy a thread unto itself.
I graduated college in May 2004, and not finding a job right away, I lived back at home for a while. I wound up going back to work at my perpetual summer job at a local deli. The pay wasn't glamorous, and it didn't use my degree, but $5.75/hour was more than 0.
When dad died that December, my life was shattered again. I was lost and crushed, and it seemed hopeless. I'll spare the full details, because there is an incredible amount of emotion bound up in the situation. However, friends of mine had been talking about getting the hell out of upstate and moving down to Albany, where there would be jobs and the potential to do something. I jumped on board, and went downstate with virtually no job prospects.
Before leaving, I had taken a civil service exam, to be put on the Lab Technician list. My uncle - who is a senior parole officer in Suffolk county - had forwarded the information to me. What the hell, I figured. This could yield something.
I interviewed for a position as a deli clerk at a Hannaford near the apartment that the 3 of us had. They almost didn't give me the job because I was grossly over-qualified, but it wound up not mattering, as I got a job as a lab tech as a result of my civil service exam! I started my career in civil service in March of 2005, and I've progressed steadily since then.
Lots of things have changed since I really got started out here - I've lived on my own since 2006; I've struggled with some intense demons as a result of dad's death (and I still struggle with it to this day); I've dated a few different women and had good and bad experiences with that; I've lost and re-gained 40 pounds; I've taken up beer brewing; I've set aside old hobbies but still cling to the hope that I can restart them; I've grown apart from some friends, grown closer to others, found brand new friends; I've met and fallen in love with an incredible woman; and I'm still fucking here.
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The point of all of this:
-I came from a low-income household in an area that provided no opportunity for advancement
-I had a loving, caring, and supportive family who helped give me the tools I have today
-My family wouldn't have made it if not for social welfare and the help of friends and family
-I wouldn't have made it if not for the help of friends and family, and for robust social programs - I am, after all, paid by tax dollars.
-I am to be credited with the perseverance that enabled me to get to where I am today
-Of all the decisions I've made, I'd say the one to not kill myself was probably the one I owned the most - I'm sure there is a confluence of circumstances that led to that deterministic result, but the chain of causality is sufficiently complex that I can justify considering myself to be a first actor in that situation
-I'm still going today, and I'm surrounded by plenty of resources that I tap today, and will continue to tap in the future, to continue propelling myself forward
-Losing a loved one, especially a parent, is probably one of the hardest goddamn things that can happen to you
-No matter what, perseverance is a huge factor in success
-"Success" is a relative term - money's not everything, as they say
Send me a check for my annual salary. It's probably less than your grocery bill. You won't even notice it's gone. I'll spend an entire year making things that could be viable businesses. I'll give you 100% of everything I make during the year since I'll already have enough money for the year. See how hard people work when the risk is lower?