Lessons learned

The following was forwarded to me by a friend.  I must say that it hit a chord with me.


An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan".. All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A.... (substituting grades for dollars - something closer to home and more readily understood by all).

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.

The second test average was a D! No one was happy.
When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.

As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed. Could not be any simpler than that.  These are possibly the 5 best sentences you'll ever read and all applicable to this experiment:

1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.

2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.

3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.

4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!

5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.

This story illustrated something I learned more  than twenty years ago as a union member.  My co-workers and I were  paid the same wage regardless of  how little or how much any one of us worked.  As long as a worker showed up to work, whether you actually worked or not, you got paid.  In the shop where I worked three of us carried the other five.  In fact when the shift leader was off we almost doubled the production because he wan't holding us back to insure that he kept the full crew of eight when we repeatedly proved that three of us could have completed the same production.

For me personally unions did not work.  To close to Socialism.  Unions have a purpose and place I just personally feel that they have outlived their usefulness.  But then I am an individual who is motivated by the fact that if I work hard I am rewarded for my hard work.  If I don't work hard I have to face the reality that I will earn less.

New Story

Last week started out full of stress.  I guess that's what happens when you have too much work and also have a family trip planned.

But, sometimes stress can lead to good things.  One night while trying to wind down and get to sleep a thought for the beginning of a new story came to mind.  Who knows when inspiration will come?

So for your consideration, "I began planning my escape the day I turned fifty years old."

As I have talked with other people near my age this thought seems to hit some kind of a chord.  I'm not sure what it is but the most common reaction is laughter accompanied by a nodding of the head.

We are not of the me generation or the x or y generation.  We are the tail end of the baby boomers.  Most of us are not quite at the age to retire and the more I talk with people even fewer of us are ready to retire.

I remember graduating from high school and going out to look for a full-time job.  There were two factories in our area.  The first was a paper products finishing plant. This included packing and shipping.  They weren't hiring.  The second was the manfacturer of moblie and modular homes.  They were hiring but I was neither a skilled carpenter nor an electrician.  So my first job out of high school was at the grocery store.  Because I was out of high school and not attending college I got the day shift and I was usually scheduled to work at least thirty hours a week.  Quite a treat.

At about the same time I was visiting with my paternal grandfather who had some advice for me.  He said, "Find a job, work there the next twenty or thirty years and then retire."  I'm sure he thought this was sound advice, he had just retired after twenty-five years with the City and now he and my grandmother were living in their retirement home on the Colorado River.

At the time I thought that was terrible advice.  I didn't want to go to work for some company for the next twenty years or more.  I wanted to travel, I wanted to try different things.  I didn't want to just settle down.

Hindsight is wonderful and a curse.  Looking back my grandfather's advice wasn't so bad.  I have friends and know others who followed my grandfather's advice.  Here they are at fifty-five years of age and retired.  Some of them have even retired twice.  And what am I doing.  I'm getting up each morning and heading out the door to work, taking orders from people younger than me and hoping that the next round of layoffs don't have my name on them, again.

On the plus side I have traveled, some.  I have expereinced new and different things, not always by my choice.  I haven't just settled down.

So, like many others of my generation I will continue working, while plainning, dreaming about, my escape.  Hoping that one day my numbers will come up.  The only problem there is in order to win the numbers you have to play them.