My Aunt Saxon Cathcart asked me, “So, Jimmy, are you self-supporting yet?”
The year was 1979 in San Diego. I was 33 years old and a full time professional speaker earning about $1,000 for each convention speech I delivered. I was giving close to 100 speeches a year. Yes, I was “self-supporting.” But, Aunt Saxon only knew me as “little Jimmy” the son of her husband’s older brother. She had known me since I was in diapers and so I was always Jimmy to her.
For the “Greatest Generation” life was about survival. They had lived through World War I and WWII plus they had survived the Great Depression of the 1930s. Everything they owned was recycled. Clothes, tools, furniture, dishes and more were handed down to the next user. Worn out clothes and socks were patched and reused. Scraps of iron or wood were saved for use in a new way. Broken things were not replaced, they were repaired. Repairs were sometimes not pretty, but they worked. Utility was paramount. If you kept something, it was because “you never know when you might need something like that.” Those were my parents, and my Aunt Saxon.
My generation is the Baby Boom, 78 million of us, born between 1946 (me) and 1964 (the year I graduated High School.) For us, survival was not the main concern. Our parents had won the wars and survived the Depression. Our job was to “become self-supporting.” To no longer be a burden, but instead, become a source of strength and productivity. We were expected to “graduate” from our childhood and to become productive adults. So we did.
I had 40 different “jobs” over the years before entering the field of Self-Improvement, “applied behavioral science.” When I say “jobs”, I mean whatever I did for pay more than just once. I mowed lawns as a child to earn “pocket money” instead of receiving an allowance. I sold my old toys yard-sale style in my neighborhood. I sold donuts door to door one summer. I worked in stores, warehouses, and drove delivery trucks. I worked at a drive-in movie in the concession stand, sold popcorn and peanuts at football games, had a newspaper route for a couple of years. I did odd jobs for neighbors for a nickel or a quarter. I was a bank teller, a proof machine (data processing) operator, a bill collector, an insurance salesman, a factory worker (hated it!), and I unloaded trucks and box cars while driving a forklift. I worked in a furniture store, sang and played guitar in beer joints and night clubs. I laid ceramic tile. Shoveled gravel and dirt. Sacked groceries, sold cars for a season, stacked bowling balls and supplies, serviced greeting card displays. Sold motorcycles. Worked as a government clerk for low wages. I struggled and occasionally succeeded. But I also failed often to make enough money to meet all my expenses. So once, I had to move my new family: wife, baby son and me, into my parents’ house for three months and find a new job. We borrowed money once from my wife’s parents and repaid them. When I was in college (2 years) my summer jobs were at minimum wage, $1,25 an hour ($200 a month.)
My cars were always used cars. I repaired and upgraded them a bit. Bought one at a state auction and drove it for years. Before getting married I always had a room mate with whom I split the rent. Sam Gross and I paid $37.50 a month each for our $75 monthly roach infested apartment. Jim Stevens and I split $150 a month for a nice Crestwood Manor one bedroom with twin beds. Sam and I got another apartment later for $165 a month and it had two bedrooms plus a pool! Woo hoo!
People talk about earning a “living wage”, as if that would be enough to live independently. We never even considered independent living until we were married. Everyone my age had a roommate or two to reduce the cost of living. And we rode the bus, shared cars, hitchhiked or walked. I occasionally walked through the ghetto at night after my warehouse workday over to Sam Gross’s family grocery store, so he could drive us home to our little apartment.
From December of 1965 to January of 1971 I was also a soldier in the Army National Guard and then the Army Reserves. Once a month I’d go to “drill” (training) for a weekend. And two weeks of summer camp each year. I am used to taking orders more often than giving them.
This message is not meant to appeal to your sympathy nor to make me look like someone special. It is just to validate the importance of becoming “self-sufficient.” That is our first job as we grow up. Once we learn to feed and dress ourselves, behave in ways that are not harmful, dangerous or wasteful, and then learn whatever will help us stop depending on others for survival…then we become productive contributors to society. That’s our job. Stop depending on others and draining strength from someone else. Start becoming a new source of strength for yourself and then others.
Parents often say, “I don’t want my kids to have it as hard as I did.” That is commendable but not the best goal. People never become self-supporting by taking an easy path. For someone to become a strong, resilient adult, one who never needs a “safe space” nor counseling to rebound from a tragedy, we MUST struggle! The resistance is what builds muscles. If learning is too easy, the lessons won’t prepare us for difficult situations.
The Struggle is Essential! If you’re out of shape, take the stairs, not the elevator. Park farther away and walk more. Don’t ask others to do what you could do. Do it for the difficulty so that you become stronger. Be a source of strength for the rest of us…and teach your kids to do the same.
A sheltered generation becomes the next enslaved generation because they are too weak emotionally, physically and intellectually to resist. Are you self-supporting yet?