Before starting this blog post, let me preface it by saying that my parents did everything they could to help me succeed in life. I was fortunate to have such dedicated, loving, and self-sacrificing parents. They gave it their all. Whatever I say here doesn't diminish my love and respect for them.
Looking back on my life I realize that going into adulthood I had no idea about the real meaning of things. I had no plan about how to manage myself or my life. I had no concept of marriage or building a family. nor did I see much benefit in it. My family always seemed to manage things well enough but the basic plan was to be able to make it through the year. I was never required nor expected to make good grades and was never pushed to excel at anything. Likewise, I was never punished when I got bad grades or didn't do my homework. I got by...and that isn't good.
It is human nature to want most of what we didn't have growing up. I think my mom wanted a family so badly because her home was not stable. My father wanted a family because he wanted to "be proud", or "show it off" to others. My mother was looking for a father because her father was absent from her life and my father was looking for a mother because his mother had just died when they met. My brother and I were their 'project'.
Their 'project' got off to a rough start because of my brother's health issues. It was difficult for my mother and confusing for my father. I came along before my brother's health problems were solved and so they had one sick child and one healthy newborn to manage. Mom didn't work during that time, it was impossible, and Dad was just a high school teacher and football coach with only a Bachelor's in English and was in the Air National Guard as a jet fighter pilot.
Much of my parent's focus was on my brother in those early years. I was 'normal' and didn't require attention. I was very young so those years aren't clear to me. I wanted for nothing and was a happy kid.
I won't go into all of my life here. I want to get to the "psychological" reasons I was raised clueless about life.
My mother had a tough youth. My father never let us forget he was born during the Depression. They wanted our lives to be free of the stress that they went through. The 1960s was a lot different than the 1930s and 40s. The whole world was different. Everything was booming. My parents didn't have much growing up and didn't want us to feel that same distress. Even when we didn't make much money, I always had everything I wanted or needed.
We grew up in a world that was full of hope and adventure. I had a very blessed youth.
But I want to discuss what was missing from my education about the world and people. We were protected from the truths about life. This protection is another way of saying we were kept in the dark about many facts of life. It seems that everyone thought someone else was responsible for teaching these things to us.
Is it the parent's responsibility? Is it the church's responsibility? Is it the education system's responsibility? Is it simply up to every kid to somehow "get it" on their own? Nothing was taught by anybody mostly because if they did then someone would have a problem that it was being taught by someone else, and wrong to boot. At best you got some half-baked answers to questions that left you as much in the dark after as before.
How to deal with the other sex is one of the primary life lessons. To me, girls weren't even the same species as me as much as I liked them. I had no idea how to communicate with them. I was in awe of them and automatically assumed they wouldn't want to have anything to do with me. I always managed to get along with everyone okay, but I sure didn't understand them and wasn't getting any coaching on it from anyone either, not that I would have ever had the guts to ask someone. Why the shame in all of that? I don't get it.
Doing well in school was another issue for me. I resented grades. I resented being evaluated by some score. However, at the same time, I loved being in a class that felt real to me. A lot of school seemed like play school to me. Everyone just always joking around. I hated it. I hated the chaos in school. I couldn't figure out why everyone was acting so crazy all of the time. I liked school when I knew what it was I was supposed to do and was expected to do it. I could deal with that. What I couldn't deal with was some sort of grading system on the curve or some weird evaluation process I didn't understand.
The reason you go to school is to learn to do well at whatever it is you are doing. It is a proving ground. The point of it all is to practice life. You want to practice self-motivation and responsibility. Yes, even in school.
My father was a Professor of Educational Psychology and evidently, the prevailing philosophy at that time was to "make sure the kids feel good about themselves." This means, even when they don't perform well let them off the hook so they don't feel bad about it. Don't hold a kid back a year if he can't keep up because it will ruin their self-image. It was more important for kids to feel good about themselves than it was to be good at what they were expected to do as if one has anything to do with the other.
I guess I sound rather conservative here but I just don't believe you are doing a kid any favors by letting them get by with things when it is clearly wrong. That doesn't serve them well.
Since my involvement in opera, I have had to face the fact that either I do it right or it is wrong. There is no grey area. The work in anything involves meeting failure and learning from it. If you aren't allowed the reality of failure then you will never learn how important it is to get it right. If you truly try and still get it wrong it doesn't mean you are bad, it just means you aren't right. It isn't a reflection on you as a human being. So, you have to work a little better, a little harder to get it right. So what? Do you have to work long and hard on something? Geez. Is that a bad thing?
In opera, you don't have time to be coddled. It is work. Hard, honest work. You have to have nerves of steel, emotional control, and a cool mind to master the difficulties involved with singing an opera. It is very tedious, present-moment work and there is nowhere to hide. So, buck up and smell the coffee.
That is how it is with being a doctor or scientist, isn't it? What can they get wrong and get by with it? Those consequences are much more important than singing an opera. Do you care how doctors feel about themselves? No, you want them to get it right and if they don't then there will be hell to pay. That is pressure. But, it doesn't help to duck it. You have to face it. That is the lesson to be learned in life. You have to face the serious reality of right and wrong and work your ass off so you always get it right.
I'm all for being positive, but not at the expense of being real. The work of life is being honest with yourself and others about the realities that exist and facing them with courage. It may not always be fun and games. It may not always be happiness and light. What is important is that everything is kept real and to not be afraid of confronting uncomfortable truths that can make you better.
Having a family was never really discussed with me by my folks. My mother just assumed that "I will want to get married and have kids of my own someday." I'll never forget her saying that. I'll never forget thinking, "No, I won't." I said that because I didn't want what my parents had. They verbally fought a lot and could never talk about money. This ongoing tension and being chained to one another all the time was not appealing to me. I got married mostly because I thought I should, not really because I wanted to. Boy, was that stupid. I had no reason to get married, I had no plan about being married, and I had no desire to build a family on my income either. Relationships, much more a family, were a distraction to me and my career and I let it distract me way too much.
Here is a truth for you:
You can always find a new mate, but you will not find a new career.
Your career is your life's mission. Without it, you aren't you. Your career is what is going to pay your bills, it will give you everything you want and without it, you are essentially nothing. Without your career, you aren't worth marrying. Nobody wants to marry a man without a career. That is clear. If they do, they shouldn't. I can only speak from my perspective, but a man without a career or a good job isn't a good candidate for any woman. Today, women don't need men. The only reason for a woman to want or need a man is if the man can give her something she can't get on their own.
I honestly got this memo way too late. So, this is a life lesson from me to you. This should be taught to every male and female curious about getting married.
Another truth for you:
You get married to be united as one with another person. This means that from the time you get married until somebody dies you are no longer yourself, you are we/us. The Facebook page goes from a picture of just you to a picture of both of you. Nobody should be able to say your name without the other being far behind. There should never be a question about what your status is. Plus, it makes life a lot simpler.
The final truth about marriage:
You get married because you want and need to build a family. The principal reason for marriage is family. This is an incredibly important part of life. Family is the backbone of society and should be the backbone of society. If you build families the right way, then social justice is ensured. This holds true in so many ways, but not the least of which is taking care of each other in times of poor health and death. The support of a good family is priceless in hard times.
Leaving a legacy of a good family behind is one of the most admirable things you can do as a human being. Good families are a blessing to themselves and to everyone who touches them. It is irreplaceable.
Know what you are doing, know why you are doing it, know who you are doing it with, and make sure you both know and often discuss what you both want and need out of a marriage. Love has something to do with it, but it can't gloss over everything necessary to make it work, especially over time. You have to get your priorities straight and make good, sound, and most importantly, united decisions.
Financially speaking there is a lot of talk about savings versus investing, other than the fact that saving is investing.
I learned from T Harv Ecker the 6 jar method, but really it is just a simple thing about saving money for the things you want. From the time you earn your first dime you should learn to save it, watch it grow, and enjoy the fact that you are making money doing nothing, even if it is only a few cents a month. The only account that goes down should be the checking account, to be replenished with new income every month. All other accounts should go up. This will also have the affect of making you feel better and more secure as time progresses.
It is okay to save for travel, dining out, and so on, but keep them all in check and focus on building the money machine from day one. It is "the single most important factor for any financial success." Don't buy a stock based on dollar value, but on getting as many shares as you can for your money. You aren't saving money in this case, you are saving shares and adding to them over time.
We are taught to spend, spend, spend, and want to spend, spend, spend, but the real goal should be to save, reinvest, and leverage your efforts so the money you have pays you money for doing nothing. That is the goal of life, not having a lump sum of money, it is how much does it make you?
In New Jersey, Koreans were famous for coming in and living in the cheapest apartment they could find while working for a 6 figure income. They saved their money for a house and instead of borrowing to buy the house, they would pay cash for it. Everything else was secondary to that goal. That is how they did everything. That is planning. That is smart. That is how you get hard work to pay off.
Own your rental properties, rent where you live, until you can flat out buy your dream house.
I guess what I am saying is that I wasn't prepared for my career, how to deal with money, how to treat a girl, how to build a family, how to leave a legacy, or how to excel at anything.
Here is a list of things you have to figure out for yourself and the sooner you decide what you want in each area the sooner you will know what your life's work is all about. Nobody talked to me about these things, and I may not have listened if they did, but this seems to be the case and will always be that way.
- Career/Mission
- Relationship/Family/Legacy
- Money
- Health
- Physical
- Mental
- Spiritual
- Social/People