I have been accused of being rich and not understanding what it’s like to be poor.

The first part of that sentence is total nonsense, and the second is somewhat true.  I am not in any way shape or form rich (financially, anyway).  I have never been rich nor have I even been well-to-d0.  In financial terms, I’m lower middle class.  There were times in my adult life when we were, as a family of five, making less than $20,000 a year.  I’m now making not quite double that.  I still have children to raise, and our cars are old (one of our cars is 23 years old).  I don’t buy new things, because I can’t afford them.  I am not rich.  I’m not even close.  I was raised similarly; we had what we needed, some of what we wanted, but we were by no means “rich.”

As for not understanding what it’s like to be poor, no, I probably don’t understand completely.

But I also don’t buy into the idea that success depends on what you got to start out with financially.  First of all, success is relative; success to me is doing something I like that pays well enough to support me and my family.  In simple terms, that’s all there is to it for me.  And that’s exactly how I’m living life.  I make enough to support us, we have a little bit extra to piddle around with, but not a lot extra.  When I’ve had more, all I’ve done is spent more.  I’ve learned that you can live on a whole lot less if you have to.  But back to that whole idea of your start determining your success.  “If you come from money, you’ll be successful.”

There are things much more critical to your success than money.  Heck, sometimes money doesn’t even equal success.  There are some key things I started with, that I was raised with, and these had nothing (directly) to do with money.  When asked what were the things you were taught growing up that made the most difference in your life, I like to say I was taught three pretty important things:

1. Always act with personal integrity.  Be honest, be fair, treat people decently unless they prove themselves to deserve otherwise, and take responsibility for your actions.
2. Work hard for what you want.
3. Don’t live on credit cards and loans.

I am not rich.  I will likely never be rich.  But I am successful. I don’t blame other people for my problems, or my bills, or my lack of success.  These things are completely on me.  They are my issues, and I take care of them.  I could not do what I do now if I did not take that kind of responsibility.  Are things perfect?  No, of course not.  But they are good.  Good enough.  We always have food in the fridge/pantry, gas in the car, I have enough spare cash to go yard saling and have a nice iced mocha once in a while.  I have an education I paid for myself, and a job that uses that education to the fullest.  I’ve never, knock on wood, truly been unemployed and I’ve worked since I was 14 years old.  I learned a simple truth when I was young – good things and “success” are earned.  They don’t happen by luck, or chance, or fate.  They are earned.  I don’t believe every sob story I hear, nor do I have a hard heart.  I help, when I can, but I don’t enable.  There’s a difference.

And I know the only difference between my current success and bigger success is in how much I want to work for it.  I’ve learned to count my blessings and successes, and to always remember to work for what I want.  It is the only guarantee in life.  Resources and opportunity exist for every single person in my country.  No one said opportunity was going to be easy.  Opportunity is an open door, a paved road, an instructional book.  You have to take it from there.

I am proud of what I’ve done, but also know that I could have (and could still) do more if I wanted to work harder at it.  And I hope I’ve given that same understanding to my children.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 15th, 2012 at 12:54 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.