Hard Earth Reckoning

Dateline:  Monday, April 23, 2012

Dear Abby,

“My wife and I are 50-year-old professionals who have paid every penny of the cost for our two daughters’ college educations.  Our oldest went on to law school and has incurred more than $100,000 in law-school loan debt.  She has struggled to find a job as an attorney, and I’m no longer sure she still wants to practice law.  She is married to a medical student who also has significant student loan debt.  Two nights ago I made the mistake of telling her that her mother and I would help pay her student loans … She and her husband spend their money on frivolous luxuries and are not responsible financially.  My wife and I live frugally.  We withdrew money from our retirement accounts to help fund our daughters’ college educations.  We now need to increase our retirement contributions and pay for maintenance and repairs to our home that we delayed while paying for their tuition.”

A Hard Earth Reckoning Truth is that we can’t forever float by on someone else’s coat tails. 

The well will eventually run dry. 

NOTE: This is not to presume that the daughter isn’t pulling SOME of her own weight.  She obviously invested enough of her own time and energy and had sufficient diligence and discipline to get through both college and law school.  But that’s simply not enough!  Unless and until everything we “get” is by our own hand and we’re both “paying it back” and “paying it forward”, we’re not playing a sustainable game.    

The teenager who gets a minimum wage job at age 16 and blows all the income on unnecessary indulgences is creating a bottomless pit of unrealistic expectations for himself/herself. 

For a truly sustainable existence between the ages of 16 and 35, we’d be packing our own lunch, eating Raman noodles for dinner, working two jobs (just like we’ll essentially be doing by age 40 … school and/or training for the NEXT job being one job), paying taxes equivalent to all the services we’re getting, shopping at Big Lots, Good Will and the Salvation Army store, driving 8-year-old Ford Focuses, owning “Go Phones” for emergency use only, putting something aside for emergencies and eventualities, and entertaining ourselves by jogging around the neighborhood or participating in community sports.  

It’s not that we don’t “deserve” what everyone else has.  It’s just that they don’t “deserve” it either!  The world economy is in dire straits in 2012 because a whole lot of people borrowed money they couldn’t pay back, spent money they didn’t have for things they didn’t need, and paid fewer taxes than necessary to support all the “entitlement” programs we have come to depend on. 

And in the process, we’re making the rich get richer as our out-of-control spending pushes the stock market to levels substantially beyond reasonability. 

Earl Pitts has been un-gently nudging us for years … “Wake Up, Umurika!”

It’s more than half-past time to start taking him seriously.

“Life will turn out the way it’s supposed to be when we start doing what we’re supposed to be doing.”   [Adapted from an old farm house calendar]   Quartermaster

SWAGGER

Looking toward the 2011-2012 NCAA playoffs, John Calipari, the much heralded coach of an incredibly talented Kentucky Wildcats basketball team, made repeated references to the fine-line but critical distinction between “arrogance” and “swagger” in his players’ attitudes – discouraging the former, generally associated with gratuitously inflated and easily deflatable self-esteem, and encouraging the latter, associated with more realistic self-assured confidence in their abilities.

During my 20^th century days working under a former Nobel Prize associate, it was invigorating to be engaged in pushing all boundaries for the advancement of science, the fruits of which – e.g., the receipt of benchmark grant awards and publications – we enjoyed with a demeanor termed the “Arrogance of Excellence”.  [Functionally, it was more like the “Swagger of Excellence”, but the implied superlative was more gratifying!] 

What was the difference?  We were inspired by our successes to work harder and better, not lulled into “resting on our laurels” (Calipari’s main concern).  There was always a higher score to attain, the next fundamental question to ask, the next fundamental question to answer, the next disease to cure, the next grant application to submit, the next experiment to do, the next manuscript to write …  And, even if we were the best, we weren’t competing just against mortals but against global time, Fate, Destiny, ignorance and perfection.  Not to mention the fact that none of us – either individually or collectively – had actually won the Nobel Prize. 

I think a good part of the distinction comes down to a question of “How big is your sandbox?”  Being “King Frog” in a small pond is a dubious distinction.  Until you can out-swim the alligators in the open estuary and the sharks in deep water, there’s not much wind in “bragging rights”. 

Perhaps the real test of one’s mettle is how good we are compared to what we “coulda” been or done.  And that’s an ever-moving target.   

And I believe the legitimacy of an award is measured by the amount of “Grace” or sportsmanship one exhibits when declared a “winner”.  Here, the difference between “arrogance”/“swagger” and simple personal satisfaction/pride in accomplishment becomes most acutely evident.  One can still work with /\ live with a person who is justifiably proud of his/her accomplishments and anxious to “share the wealth”.  Not so much so otherwise. 

John Rosemond, syndicated columnist, has undertaken a running attack against inflated self-esteem – which would include arrogance, swagger, narcissism, and bullying.  In an attempt to describe a more healthy, effective and socially acceptable self-image, he suggests that humility may be the key attitudinal element (Tuesday, March 20, 2012).  Humility reflects a much truer self-image as we find ourselves living in a very large and complex world now closing in on 5 billion people, many of whom are smarter, more talented, better conditioned/better educated and more productive.   But humility isn’t what drove George Washington to cross the Delaware or Abraham Lincoln to run for President of the United States. 

So, it seems we need different or more expansive terminology to describe a healthy self-image.  The terms self-efficacy, self-assurance and self-confidence – well-founded – help fill this gap. 

But, in the end, as Rosemond points out, it’s not really about ME!  It’s about how much value I can add to the lives of others.  In fact, my existence can only be justified by the amount I contribute toward advancement of the universe and the wellbeing of my fellow travelers within it.  It is their esteem that should drive me forward, onward and upward.  Once I get that right, even if I can never be completely satisfied with my own accomplishments, my best effort in that direction will carry reward enough to make it all worthwhile. 

Do something today to add value to the lives of others – because you CAN – and keep doing.  Quartermaster