The Great Race

Atop this wet Stoa this day, I wish to discuss "The Great Race".

My son the other day was watching an episode of, "Scared Straight", where teenage punks are sent to jail to see what their future will look like. The best part of the episode is the end when you get to see who was paying attention and who was not. To see those that straighten up and fly right vs. those who continue their spirals.

My son asked me why these kids do these things? If they know they are going to be in trouble, why do it? If their lives are going to be messed up forever, why do it?

Again, the kids do listen, even when you don't think they are.

What he is referring to is what I call, "The Great Race". This is a euphemism for what everyone else calls, "Life".

We all have our races to run. Our own paths to take. Sometimes they cross, sometimes they run together for a time. Some paths end prematurely. Others, steer off the path and into a tree.

When a child is learning to walk, the most they have to worry about is falling on something sharp or pulling something heavy down onto them. When they are getting on to their Junior or Middle School years, they really need to be thinking about their placement on the starting line. What their pole position will be in life.

My goal, and as I've imparted upon my children, is to live a life of comfort and contentment. Am I comfortable? Not really. Life is tough. Am I content? For the most part, yes. As Mr. Conehead would say, "contentment and stability have been achieved." If you set out to be rich, then you really do not know what will make you happy for money certainly is not the answer.

To do this, you have to get a good education in school. I don't give a fig about "extra-curricular activities". It is about knowing something or knowing how to do something that some one, some where, some time, will be willing to give you money in order to provide that something as a service.

Helping the homeless is admirable, but you've got your own bills to pay. Feeding the poor does not help the poor find work, nor does it help if you end up being at the back of the chow line yourself.

Like in a falling airplane, put the mask on yourself first, then help others.

Get good grades, pay attention in class and teach yourself how to think. Challenge your teachers and be critical of things that smack of pseudo-science.

From there, go to a good Community College or University, or combination thereof, and learn a skill or trade that others will be willing to pay you to perform. I don't care if it is engine repair or quantum mechanics. Don't take primitive Latin poetry or Underwater Basket Weaving or Post Feminist Studies in Gay and Lesbian Policy Making in Elizabethan England. No one will pay you for those skills.

The race is that everyone else out there is looking for the same kind of comfort and stability in their lives, even if they are not consciously aware of it. It is the "duck, duck, goose" of life. There are only ever so many chairs at any given time. You MUST be able to compete with and defeat the guy or gal standing next to you for the spot in the University or the position at work. If you studied hard and learned more than the other guy, then you will do alright.

When you are at work, you must continue to better yourself. Learning does not end with school, it only begins. You must work smarter and harder than everyone else if you want to get paid more. What you produce must be superior to others if you want to remain comfortable.

The trick is balance. If you devote yourself to work, you will lose in the end, for you will have lived to work instead of working to live. Remember the Stoic concepts of strife and unhappiness. Those only happen when you are not living in accord to Nature.

There will be the potential to be "downsized" at every point in your life. Be in the top 10% of anything you do and you will prove to be too valuable to be cut, though even that will not help you all the time.

Live your life your way, don't harm or impose upon others. Don't ask for anything that is not offered, and even then, all in moderation.

You will always be racing and competing with others. For the attention of a boy or girl at the school dance. For the head nod at a job interview, for the recognition and promotion of a job well-done.

You must be sharper and cleaner than the others if you wish to stay ahead.

If you have to be sent to jail to learn what your future home is going to look like, then things are not looking good for you. If you have a Juvenile criminal record, colleges and Universities may pass on you. If you have a criminal record, then even working at a gas station becomes a goal as most others will have nothing to do with you.

In a tight labor market, the employer is looking for the best and the brightest at all times...at the right price. If you have strikes against you, then you simply set yourself up for failure each and every time you go for a new job. Each and every time.

Run the race. Run it honorably. Live without regrets. Live understanding those things you can and should change, and develop the patience and wisdom to know the difference between them all.

Take care, everyone.

Live well.

--Zavost