…because it was lonely at the bottom too.

I saw this quote recently and thought that it made a lot of sense.  The reality is that for the most part, with the exception of a few close friends and some family, we are on our own in life.  In many ways it was meant to be this way to a large degree.  And while complete autonomy is not really possible or advisable, there is a high degree of personal responsibility that we all much accept if we want a life worth living.

 

I have one or two people that I was friends with in high school and for a little while after that I would want to sit and have dinner with.  The rest are a distance memory of a life led so long ago I can barely remember the details.  I was such a different person back then that I laugh at some of the things I did and said.  And in most cases, people that you start out with in life are rarely the ones that ether stay for the entire ride or can help get you where you want to go.  Just like within a company that you will have turn over as the company grows, life is the same way.  I do not think that the people I went to high school with would recognize me at this point in my life.  And I am sure that this is true for me of them; we all evolved into different people throughout our lives.  But it is so easy to get stuck in this past roles that we see people in that moving into a new group of friends is far easier than convincing the old crew that you are “not that guy anymore”.

Regardless of where you start out in life, it is your responsibility to put yourself into position to get where you want to go.  Allow me to illustrate this from both ends of the socio-economic spectrum…

If you are born into a rich family, or even an upper middle class family, it would seem that things are easy in many ways.  And to some degree they are easier, as you have little to no worries about the basics of life.  But even with a lot of advantages that you were born into being the normal environment for you, there are hurdles to clear.  I will readily admit that this is the easier of the two paths, no doubt.  But there is one thing that is usually missed when this is your upbringing.  Resiliency.

When things are handed to you there will always be less appreciation for them.  If you were lucky enough to get a car for your sixteenth birthday, whether it was a brand new Jeep Rubicon or a POS that barely runs, you had a CAR GIVEN TO YOU.  That is a life of privilege by almost all definitions.  Even if you had a job at sixteen to pay for insurance and gas, you still started out ahead of the game.  But there is fundamental need for struggle built into the human race that helps us develop.  We were built for it, and despite our society making things easier and easier for us all the time, we still have to have some hardships to overcome to be a better version of ourselves on the other side of.  As the old saying goes:

Hard times make strong men

       Strong men make good times

               Good times make weak men

                      Weak men make hard times

This cycle has been true at the individual family level and the societal level throughout history.  If you have ever met an entitled young kid, boy or girl you know what I mean.  Kids without any discipline, who are used to getting exactly what they want are going to grow up to be unsuccessful adults.  This is why parenting is so critical; having two people who have differing styles and who balance each other out, is so important.  You need a parent who always makes you feel loved no matter what you do. And you need a parent who pushes you to feel like you need to strive and achieve to be worthy of their respect and love seems to be the balance that is best.  Typically, these roles are of your mother, and then your father, respectively.  But hopefully you understand that your father’s love was always there, it was just expressed in different ways and by someone who didn’t want you to settle.

The goal of parents is to make their kids lives easier than there’s was, and in the past 100 years, this has played out pretty much as desired.  Grand parents and great grand parents who were born in the early 1900’s and lived through World Wars, the Great Depression, and a lot more were tough and hardy people.  They had to be; and they became know as “the greatest generation” for a reason.  Their children were given a leg up, a chance to live a better life because of all of their parents struggles.  This in turn was passed on to their kids, who grew up in suburbs and with piano lesson and soccer practice.  Life became so much easier within two generations that most of the struggles so familiar to the grand parents were not on the radar for the grandkids.  It made the grandparents so proud, as it should.  But add another generation or two of that in the mix, and guess where we are in the cycle listed above…weak men making hard times.

Now, let’s look at the other side, the one that is still struggling to get into a more comfortable position in life.  So many people live their lives at or below the poverty line that it would shock you.  According to the US. Census Bureau, almost 38 million people in the United Stated live in poverty.  While the definition of poverty will vary widely state by state, this is a national study looking at multiple factors.  there are a lot of things that factor into this statistic, including where you were born, are both parents in the home, is it a safe and stable environment and many more.  This is a recipe for a struggle, but not an insurmountable one.  Many people who started in this spot excelled despite of it, or is it maybe because of it?  In the right person, this is motivation to change their circumstances at any cost.  THAT will get you out of bed and to work or to school or both in many cases.  You have two choices in this scenario, you accept your fate and live low, or you work hard and change things for yourself.

Choose your life wisely…because it is a CHOICE.