Do you enjoy what you do for a living? Statistically speaking, you probably don’t. An extremely high percentage of people have resigned themselves to a career of doing something that doesn’t make them happy, but affords them a comfortable existence, or at least puts food on the table.
Most of us, while in the process of becoming adults have dreams of becoming something spectacular, maybe a baseball player, a rock star or, something more conservative, possibly a doctor or a lawyer; however, most are not afforded the opportunity to dedicate the time required to rise to the top of the food chain in these particular fields of endeavor. We may have come from poor, unsuccessful or uneducated families who could not afford to provide us with the higher education required to give us the exposure to elite sports or the academics required to become a doctor or a lawyer.
Regardless of what a person does for a living, there is no reason not to aspire to something better. You are never too old to try to improve yourself and make your life better. There are many instances where people have gone back to school and acquired college degrees at advanced and sometimes even very advanced ages.
I grew up in a town that by all appearances looks like a small, clean, conservative town full of happy middle-class people who are all happy being mildly successful in their stress fee, slow paced country existence; however, appearances can be deceiving. Upon further examination, and armed with the knowledge of the inner workings of the community and an personal relationship with many of it’s long-term residents, it becomes readily evident that there are deep seeded issues that can only be attributed to al lack of family values, a complete absence of motivation for ones self or their children, or the prevalence of the drug culture among the current generation.
Don’t get me wrong, there were drugs in my day also. Maybe not the designer drugs that are available today, but most of the kids that I went to high school with at least experimented, however briefly, with marijuana. There were your usual number of alcoholics and even a few “town drunks” who you could always depend on to stir up their own brand of trouble in the community. What we didn’t have were the crack smoking, crystal methamphetamine using, heroin banging knuckleheads who would steal their grandmother’s last twenty dollar bill just to get high type of people. If you are too naïve to believe that this type of person exists, go home and set up you TEVOE to record a couple of episodes of “Intervention”. After you have seen a couple of these, you eyes should open up to some of the problems that most of rural America is facing, not to mention some of the more grossly overpopulated areas of the country.
Every time that I make a trip back home, I stand in amazement at the number of people who I have known for most of my life who have no motivation to make anything out of themselves. They work irregularly at mundane construction jobs, seemingly just to earn enough of a paycheck to go out and drink or get high all weekend, then on Monday morning they grudgingly start the process all over again. Most of these guys are intelligent enough to make improvements in their lives, but seem to have no motivation to do so.
I am the father of 6 children, all of who have spent at least a portion of their lives in that community. I have been blessed with 6 very intelligent children who have the ability to be successful in any field of endeavor that they may choose; however, I constantly worry about their willingness to do so based on the influence of all of the people around them, including the people that they consider their friends.
I have always struggled, even with my limited education to improve my life by hard work, self education and a constant effort to improve my skills as a person for no other reason than to give my family the opportunity to see how the other half lives and to motivate them to strive to make a better life for themselves. One of my main priorities was to move my family out of the poison environment that is the town where I grew up; although, no matter how far I move them away, the place seems to magnetically draw them back toward it with an ever increasing pull. It seems that all I can do is to continuously try to convince them of the things that are best for them and hopefully, time permitting, they will come to the realization that “old dad” knew what he was talking about after all, and hopefully this will happen before it is too late and something happens that cannot be fixed.
Do I enjoy what I do for a living? For the most part, yes, I do; although it hasn’t come without a price. I didn’t start out being able to make a great living without having to physically work and sweat exposed to the wrath of mother nature. I spent many years working impossible hours, spending weeks and sometimes months away from my family, all the while taking whatever punishment that nature could hand out, whether it be freezing in the winter without any way of getting in out of it or standing out in the searing heat with no shelter to keep the blazing sun off of you, all the while knowing that regardless of the amount of freezing rain that was being dumped on you, you knew that you had to stay there and get the work done or the oil company that you were out there working for would have you replaced in a heartbeat with someone who would.
Most people would grudgingly continue to do this type of work for their entire lives, and don’t get me wrong, it paid very well. I spent the time reading an average of 3 to 4 books per week while others would waste their spare time watching TV, which was one of the few things that you could do on an offshore platform when you weren’t working other than eat and sleep. I concentrated on Non-Fiction, Biography and Autobiography, as well as an occasional “self-help” or educational book, all the while with the thought in the back of my head that the only way that I would be able to advance in my field was through education and self improvement. I knew that I would not be able to have the advantages of formal higher education and would probably never possess a college degree. Hell, I am the guy who will never be able to retire because I have too many mouths to feed.
I am a firm believer that a formal education is not always a good gage of intelligence. I once knew a self made millionaire who grew up as one of 12 children to a cotton farmer who would rather use his kids for farm hands than give them the advantage of even the most basic education. This man had more common sense than most and was very intelligent in his own right, but he had to rely on others who he trusted for even the smallest details of running his company. He had built his company through his reputation for hard work and integrity and grew to be one of the most respected members of his community.
Education makes life easier for people. It opens doors that would otherwise remain firmly closed. I think that everyone should aspire to attaining a college degree, and if that is not a possibility for you, for whatever reason, there is no more noble legacy that a man can leave than the fact that he did everything in his power to see that his children were considerate of others, honest, educated and successful.
Most of us, while in the process of becoming adults have dreams of becoming something spectacular, maybe a baseball player, a rock star or, something more conservative, possibly a doctor or a lawyer; however, most are not afforded the opportunity to dedicate the time required to rise to the top of the food chain in these particular fields of endeavor. We may have come from poor, unsuccessful or uneducated families who could not afford to provide us with the higher education required to give us the exposure to elite sports or the academics required to become a doctor or a lawyer.
Regardless of what a person does for a living, there is no reason not to aspire to something better. You are never too old to try to improve yourself and make your life better. There are many instances where people have gone back to school and acquired college degrees at advanced and sometimes even very advanced ages.
I grew up in a town that by all appearances looks like a small, clean, conservative town full of happy middle-class people who are all happy being mildly successful in their stress fee, slow paced country existence; however, appearances can be deceiving. Upon further examination, and armed with the knowledge of the inner workings of the community and an personal relationship with many of it’s long-term residents, it becomes readily evident that there are deep seeded issues that can only be attributed to al lack of family values, a complete absence of motivation for ones self or their children, or the prevalence of the drug culture among the current generation.
Don’t get me wrong, there were drugs in my day also. Maybe not the designer drugs that are available today, but most of the kids that I went to high school with at least experimented, however briefly, with marijuana. There were your usual number of alcoholics and even a few “town drunks” who you could always depend on to stir up their own brand of trouble in the community. What we didn’t have were the crack smoking, crystal methamphetamine using, heroin banging knuckleheads who would steal their grandmother’s last twenty dollar bill just to get high type of people. If you are too naïve to believe that this type of person exists, go home and set up you TEVOE to record a couple of episodes of “Intervention”. After you have seen a couple of these, you eyes should open up to some of the problems that most of rural America is facing, not to mention some of the more grossly overpopulated areas of the country.
Every time that I make a trip back home, I stand in amazement at the number of people who I have known for most of my life who have no motivation to make anything out of themselves. They work irregularly at mundane construction jobs, seemingly just to earn enough of a paycheck to go out and drink or get high all weekend, then on Monday morning they grudgingly start the process all over again. Most of these guys are intelligent enough to make improvements in their lives, but seem to have no motivation to do so.
I am the father of 6 children, all of who have spent at least a portion of their lives in that community. I have been blessed with 6 very intelligent children who have the ability to be successful in any field of endeavor that they may choose; however, I constantly worry about their willingness to do so based on the influence of all of the people around them, including the people that they consider their friends.
I have always struggled, even with my limited education to improve my life by hard work, self education and a constant effort to improve my skills as a person for no other reason than to give my family the opportunity to see how the other half lives and to motivate them to strive to make a better life for themselves. One of my main priorities was to move my family out of the poison environment that is the town where I grew up; although, no matter how far I move them away, the place seems to magnetically draw them back toward it with an ever increasing pull. It seems that all I can do is to continuously try to convince them of the things that are best for them and hopefully, time permitting, they will come to the realization that “old dad” knew what he was talking about after all, and hopefully this will happen before it is too late and something happens that cannot be fixed.
Do I enjoy what I do for a living? For the most part, yes, I do; although it hasn’t come without a price. I didn’t start out being able to make a great living without having to physically work and sweat exposed to the wrath of mother nature. I spent many years working impossible hours, spending weeks and sometimes months away from my family, all the while taking whatever punishment that nature could hand out, whether it be freezing in the winter without any way of getting in out of it or standing out in the searing heat with no shelter to keep the blazing sun off of you, all the while knowing that regardless of the amount of freezing rain that was being dumped on you, you knew that you had to stay there and get the work done or the oil company that you were out there working for would have you replaced in a heartbeat with someone who would.
Most people would grudgingly continue to do this type of work for their entire lives, and don’t get me wrong, it paid very well. I spent the time reading an average of 3 to 4 books per week while others would waste their spare time watching TV, which was one of the few things that you could do on an offshore platform when you weren’t working other than eat and sleep. I concentrated on Non-Fiction, Biography and Autobiography, as well as an occasional “self-help” or educational book, all the while with the thought in the back of my head that the only way that I would be able to advance in my field was through education and self improvement. I knew that I would not be able to have the advantages of formal higher education and would probably never possess a college degree. Hell, I am the guy who will never be able to retire because I have too many mouths to feed.
I am a firm believer that a formal education is not always a good gage of intelligence. I once knew a self made millionaire who grew up as one of 12 children to a cotton farmer who would rather use his kids for farm hands than give them the advantage of even the most basic education. This man had more common sense than most and was very intelligent in his own right, but he had to rely on others who he trusted for even the smallest details of running his company. He had built his company through his reputation for hard work and integrity and grew to be one of the most respected members of his community.
Education makes life easier for people. It opens doors that would otherwise remain firmly closed. I think that everyone should aspire to attaining a college degree, and if that is not a possibility for you, for whatever reason, there is no more noble legacy that a man can leave than the fact that he did everything in his power to see that his children were considerate of others, honest, educated and successful.
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