When my Grandmother was raising me to be a gentleman in the sense of an English or Scottish Gentleman I began to get what was possible. In the 1950s men seemed especially miserable here in the U.S. and their lot often seemed to have to work unceasingly until they died in their 30s, 40s or 50s or even earlier if they were in gangs of poorer men of all races.
When I was 4 years old there was something about how they dressed me in a little brown suit and trench coat with a briefcase that inside I had comic books and my raggedy Ann and Andy rag dolls popular in the 1950s. It was 1952 and my mother and Grandmother and I took the train from Seattle to San Diego because my father had already driven the several days south from Seattle it took to get there before Interstate 5 was put in in the late 1950s and early 1960s and into the 1970s. It likely took 4 to 6 days then before Interstate 5. Now you might make this same drive in two or 3 days depending upon traffic conditions in San Diego or Los Angeles.
I looked around me and saw how miserable the lives of most men were that my father knew in the 1950s. I wondered how awful my life would also be and would it be as miserable as these men I met that my father knew. He was an electrician and his joy in life was being married to my mother and raising me and taking care of my mother's mother and being in his religion. Mom and Dad were very religious people.
However, when I looked at their lives I knew they were good people but I also knew we weren't rich even though my father was valedictorian of his High School Class. I also knew my grandfather wouldn't let my father go to college to become an Electrical Engineer like he wanted to either. So, my father from my ages zero to 12 was an electrician and then he became an Electrical Contractor and we moved up in the world then from lower middle Class to middle Class from then on.
When my father became an Electrical Contractor I began to have hope for my life that it might not be miserable at that point. I was right. It started to get better. The more educated I got in High school and college the more ways I realized I didn't have to suffer like my parents did before me.
So, the more I learned the more I realized I could create the life I wanted to live. I didn't have to work for other people I could have my own business or businesses like my father did when he became an Electrical Contractor. I could have a good life, even an amazing life which I did.
So, I would say success isn't about working 40 years for a company and being given a watch and then dying. No. It's about creatively creating your own life which is a good life for yourself and your family.
And this might mean literally anything. You can either be a slave to others your whole life, literally, and never have anything but a gold watch or you can be: "Master of your own ship and creator of your own destiny". It's a choice.
So, when people bemoan men not being slaves they only want men to work as slaves until they die.
The real quest in life is being smart enough to know that you need to "Work Smarter not harder".
It's all about efficiency in the end. Either you are more and more efficient every day or you are someone's slave. There doesn't really seem to be a middle Ground here.
What's it going to Be?
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