Colonel wrote: Wed Sep 15, 2021 8:14 pm
Give me an example of something you feel was spectacular
I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, so let's just say he had his ICAS card
at age 18 (solo and form) and before he was 30, earning more than
any pilot
in Canada.
Both of those were a lot of hard work.
Those sound like great achievements, I don't doubt they took a lot of effort on his part. Though for what its worth, saying you make more money than any pilot in Canada isn't really saying much. Its not a high bar. FWIW, my wife also earns a six figure wage and makes more than any pilot in Canada. Do you think she and your son are equally hard workers based solely upon that data point?
But you made a pretty big boast in saying he works harder than anyone you know, so either you don't know a lot of people, or have a special way of qualifying his level of work. I mean I know all of my progenitors, and holy fuck those people did work. They did lots of hard, brutal work. I doubt you or I would have lasted a day in some of their shoes. But they were hardly successful, their reward was surviving, and making sure that the rest of us who came after had an easier time of it. Now since then the nature of work has changed enough that we have to redefine a bit what it is to "work"
For example, part of my day started cleaning airplanes. I had a bit of open time in my schedule and it was a task that needed to be done. I could have put it off, or detailed someone else to do it. I mean, I'm chief pilot after all, I could have told myself I'm too important and such things are beneath my station. Now by doing that, does that make me a hard worker? There was no reward for that, I could have easily drank coffee instead, or watched cartoons at home and came in later. It didn't progress to making me "more successful" by any measurable amount. I did it because it mattered to me, and that was all I needed. For the second half of my work day I conducted some interviews and audited some maintenance packages. The former its hard to define it as "work". Its certainly something I got paid for, and maybe the "work" aspect comes from I took on responsibility more than anything else, which is another form of work - maybe we can think of it as potential work, any time you take a responsibility for something, its backed up by the potential for actual work down the road. It also used my time, on someone else's scheduling, so definitely fell into the category of work. Auditing was not hard work, merely tedious. Again responsibility was taken. With the latter two, I can't think of how I could have did them "harder" unless I arbitrarily made them more difficult. Nor would making them "harder" have somehow contributed to my overall success. Tonight I type this while I keep an eye on supper, then will likely do dishes - the home work things that are necessary for survival. I suppose I could have been lazier and ordered out, and/or leave the dishes, and occasionally do, but today my home made roasted garlic marinara sauce is tasting pretty good. Later I'm planning to practice my guitar for a few hours, like I have every night I'm home for the past two months. Not sure if I call that work. Play hard? Its results will probably never qualify as a spectacular success, so some may define it as nothing worthwhile.
What you think is bullshit, I guess,
from your collectivist cultural viewpoint.
What's bullshit, is I have been constantly expected to adhere to what someone else's view of hard work and success is, usually from the aim of devaluing my work. Usually there's a self-made conceit element to it, which usually is their justification for trying to step on you, not compensate you for work rendered or in general fuck you over under the guise that "its just business".
Its my experience that a majority of people work hard, or reasonably so. Many may not be successful, at least successful by your standard or even mine. I know few (and yes they are out there) really lazy and generally useless non contributing zeros. I'm even related to a few. But not being successful is more a function of poor choices and as opposed to working hard at anything.
So if you were to tell me your son has made some really smart choices in life, that has led to his success in certain aspects, I really couldn't argue with that. One of those choices may have been to put a lot of effort towards specific goals. Again, I can't argue.