My father went to his grave feeling he was a failure because “The Army had trained him to work on the wrong kind of airplane.” My mother was heartbroken because I studied astronomy, not something “useful”, like medicine or law. “I guess you can always go into teaching.” How many kids have had their dreams crushed with that cruel calculus?

We’ve all heard variations of the tired old saw; “Maybe he’s a good engineer (scientist, athlete, craftsman, artist) but he’s got no head for business.” (As if that was all that really mattered.) We live in a society that prizes commercial success and the accumulation of wealth, but not the satisfaction of a job well done. We are told of the dignity of labor, and the value of work, but the real lesson drilled into us is that hard work is for chumps. Smart people buy cheap and sell dear, and those who don’t only deserve to slave on Maggie’s Farm for eternity.

Don’t get me wrong. Money is important. We aren’t entitled to a free ride, we owe the world a hard day’s work, and there is no free lunch. And doing a good job is a joy in itself. But money is only a means to an end, it is not the end itself. It is only a tool. If you don’t use it to enrich your life you are pissing it away and wasting your short days on Earth.

So next time someone tells you, “If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich?”, look at them straight in the eye and ask them “If you’re so rich, why aren’t you happy?”

I am not ashamed that I never turned my talents into generating wealth. I am proud of the fact that what I have achieved in life has been earned with my own labor, not the sweat of another man’s brow. And although I may die poor, I will die out of debt.

I never worked after I had children, so my success hinged on how my children perceived their lives I gave them. They say they had a great childhood. I am a melancholy, introverted self reflective loner. I am my own worst critic, so success is not a word I have adapted to defining very well.

I define it as an interesting life, filled with freedom, happiness, love…and wonder.

In fact, I remember when my parent’s generation used to say the same thing about mine.

“We have a tendency to take full credit for our successes, but we often blame the times, and others, for our failures.”

We are raising little snots with entitlement issues. They have a victim mentality, and your post gives them permission to fail…to not try.I maintain there is no such thing as victims….only in natural disasters.

I was born in 1947 into a working class immigrant family, brought up in a Federal housing project, and came of age in an FHA-financed tract housing suburb. My childhood memories were dominated by legends of the War, the Depression, and the Old Country. My adolescence was marked by political assassinations, civil rights, Vietnam and the Beatles. By the time I was 30, I had been living away from home for a decade, earned a Master’s degree, served in the military, mastered two blue collar trades and one high tech skill (all three now obsolete!), lived and worked for a year in a foreign country, and was flat broke, but completely out of debt. And I was living with (and supporting) a woman 10 years younger than I was.

I don’t think today’s slacker youth is intrinsically any worse, (or better) than we were. People are all pretty much the same, all over and for all time. Individuals may vary enormously but populations are remarkably similar. But I do believe I had breaks and opportunities that are no longer available to them, advantages and institutions that have been steadily degrading for the last three or four decades.
But I was also young enough and strong enough to handle the growing challenges but old enough to still benefit from the waning opportunities. By the skin of my teeth, when the time came for marriage and career, I was prepared, not just professionally and academically, but in real world experience and street creds. I had an excellent education.

I can’t help it if I’m lucky. Through no fault of their own, I don’t think today’s kids can say that. It’s not their fault, it is ours. Our generation is flawed. We have a tendency to take full credit for our successes, but we often blame the times, and others, for our failures. I do my best to avoid falling into that trap. Whether I am successful or not in doing that is not for me say.