Am I Honest Enough.....

[Paradox]

Hard work is essential but also is getting a break. Too many people who say that you need to work harder and stop expecting a hand out have no idea how many options they had available to them. Sure they took advantage of those opportunities and worked hard and they were successful. But times change and opportunities fade. Telling someone to just get a job when they have and seen people die does not help. BUT...asking for a hand out just allows people who say just get a job to feel vindicated.

There's got to be a middle ground.

I was told at a young age that I had to work for what I wanted because no one was going to give it to me for free.
After I started working, no one ever gave me a break, my bills still had to be paid. No one paid them for me, it was my responsibility.

There are programs that do help lower income people get loans. There are organizations like Habitat for Humanity that also help people get houses.
In fact here is the website in case Sorce would want to pursue that avenue

Apply for a Habitat house

Learn about Habitat’s homeownership process and family selection qualifications. Habitat does not give away houses; instead, future homeowners partner with local affiliates and volunteers to build or rehabilitate a home and pay an affordable mortgage.

www.habitat.org

According to sorce's website, he has worked in construction which is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world.
Yes people have died doing construction, but they are a very small percentage of the total people doing those jobs.
We also dont know the details of those deaths. Was it a freak accident?
Was the company not enforcing safety protocols? accident that happens.
How many of those deaths were because the individual disregarded personal safety and didnt follow basic safety protocols?
No one is telling him to go do a dangerous job.

There are plenty of jobs that dont involve doing dangerous things.
Hell a cashier got killed last week due to an argument over a freaking mask of all the asinine things but people are still doing that job and the vast majority of them will be just fine.

Part of my own job evolves going out on a boat to sample fish by towing a net, which is basically commercial fishing, which is the most dangerous job in the world.
Many people have died commercial fishing, but I still need to pay my bills and feed myself. We have strict safety procedures that we follow and that survey has been conducted for over 30 years with out injury to anyone.

People die in car accidents, but we still drive every day.
People die crossing the street but we still cross.
People die slipping and falling in the bathtub but I still take a shower.

Life is full of risks.
You do what you can to mitigate and avoid them and live life or you can build a bubble around yourself and never leave your house.

 

[HorseloverFat]

My parents gave me a break… Worked hard, never went on vacation, never drove nice cars, never spent frivolously, cut coupons, hardly ever ate out, only bought clothes when they were on sale,etc…. Put me and my two sisters through college and we all had very minimal debt when we graduated. They showed me what it takes to live in a world like the one we have. I have never been given a break from anybody else, My kids aren’t getting a break, either. Seriously. If you expect somebody to give you something for nothing, you may end up being very disappointed.

That sounds like, thanks to your parents.. you got to start AHEAD... I wish my parents had paid for my schooling..I still have SOME debt.

You were lucky enough to learn from them and carry on that wisdom, I agree..

But what if.. you didn’t have parentS? What if, due to this, You financial familial obligations at a young age forced YOU to help support the family as soon as you were able to?... not much room for advancement.. NONE of these things describe MY situation.. but I see it quite often..

If you had parents that paid for ANYTHING beyond essentials.. it’s a different boat for those who lived on the other side of those tracks that some parents worked REAL hard to “conceal” and protect their kids from..

The fact that you HAD parents... HAD a decent place to live.. HAD your schooling paid for... ALL of these things ARE a “foot-up” when compared with THE MAJORITY of the population... which DO NOT have these things.

Yes! You worked hard.. and earned what you have. NO DOUBT!

....but you had the OPPORTUNITY to start from “baseline”..., and GREAT role-models to shape your spending habits after... MOST do not...

 

[Dav4]

That sounds like, thanks to your parents.. you got to start AHEAD... I wish my parents had paid for my schooling..I still have SOME debt.

You were lucky enough to learn from them and carry on that wisdom, I agree..

But what if.. you didn’t have parentS? What if, due to this, You financial familial obligations at a young age forced YOU to help support the family as soon as you were able to?... not much room for advancement.. NONE of these things describe MY situation.. but I see it quite often..

If you had parents that paid for ANYTHING beyond essentials.. it’s a different boat for those who lived on the other side of those tracks that some parents worked REAL hard to “conceal” and protect their kids from..

The fact that you HAD parents... HAD a decent place to live.. HAD your schooling paid for... ALL of these things ARE a “foot-up” when compared with THE MAJORITY of the population... which DO NOT have these things.

Yes! You worked hard.. and earned what you have. NO DOUBT!

....but you had the OPPORTUNITY to start from “baseline”..., and GREAT role-models to shape your spending habits after... MOST do not...

Like I told my son yesterday, life isn’t fair! People shouldn’t be having kids without knowing that they can take care of them financially, morally, socially, etc. I was blessed to have two incredibly smart, hard-working, selfless individuals as parents. Because of what they gave to me, they had to work well past retirement age to be able to settle down themselves. Also, I suspect that if my parents had passed prematurely, one of their siblings would have stepped up and taking us in and we would’ve ended up in a similar situation.

 

[Paradox]

That sounds like, thanks to your parents.. you got to start AHEAD... I wish my parents had paid for my schooling..I still have SOME debt.

You were lucky enough to learn from them and carry on that wisdom, I agree..

But what if.. you didn’t have parentS? What if, due to this, You financial familial obligations at a young age forced YOU to help support the family as soon as you were able to?... not much room for advancement.. NONE of these things describe MY situation.. but I see it quite often..

If you had parents that paid for ANYTHING beyond essentials.. it’s a different boat for those who lived on the other side of those tracks that some parents worked REAL hard to “conceal” and protect their kids from..

The fact that you HAD parents... HAD a decent place to live.. HAD your schooling paid for... ALL of these things ARE a “foot-up” when compared with THE MAJORITY of the population... which DO NOT have these things.

Yes! You worked hard.. and earned what you have. NO DOUBT!

....but you had the OPPORTUNITY to start from “baseline”..., and GREAT role-models to shape your spending habits after... MOST do not...

I had a single mother that made barely enough to support us.
Yes she helped me pay for college by working her ass off and scraping every last penny she could and not spending more than she had.
She bought used cars when she needed a new one, cut coupons, bought what was on sale, bought clothes on sale when we needed them.

There are programs out there that help people that dont have parents go to college. There are people that lost their parents at a young age that still went to college and made something of themselves. They did it through hard work and personal responsibility, not asking for a hand out. There are also plenty of poor people that rose above their circumstances to become successful.

There are lots of programs out there to help people that are disadvantaged, the thing is you need to seek them out and participate.

 

[Bonsai Nut]

That sounds like, thanks to your parents.. you got to start AHEAD... I wish my parents had paid for my schooling..I still have SOME debt.

You were lucky enough to learn from them and carry on that wisdom, I agree..

But what if.. you didn’t have parentS? What if, due to this, You financial familial obligations at a young age forced YOU to help support the family as soon as you were able to?... not much room for advancement.. NONE of these things describe MY situation.. but I see it quite often..

If you had parents that paid for ANYTHING beyond essentials.. it’s a different boat for those who lived on the other side of those tracks that some parents worked REAL hard to “conceal” and protect their kids from..

The fact that you HAD parents... HAD a decent place to live.. HAD your schooling paid for... ALL of these things ARE a “foot-up” when compared with THE MAJORITY of the population... which DO NOT have these things.

Yes! You worked hard.. and earned what you have. NO DOUBT!

....but you had the OPPORTUNITY to start from “baseline”..., and GREAT role-models to shape your spending habits after... MOST do not...

So I think we can all agree on disagreeing If you have money, you look at many people who don't and think "work harder". If you don't have money, you look at people who do and think "they are privileged" or "lucky".

And the people without money say "I work plenty hard" and the people with money say "I am neither privileged or lucky".

"Never judge someone until you've walked a mile in his shoes. That way, when you do judge him, you're a mile away and you have his shoes."

 

[HorseloverFat]

Absolutely understand...

I was, also, blessed..

My parents are both Marines... supported me EXTENSIVELY.. didn’t pay for much, outright.. but I ALWAYS had them to bail me out when I was in too deep, always had them to “fall back on”..

I managed to fuck up my life so badly that i basically “restarted” at 30... My parents should be EMBARRASSED of me,.. but nope.. they are still there.. if I would ever need to “fall back”..

I’m impoverished..But I’m also now disabled...,I take advantage of the programs intended to help..you bet your ass I do. that’s what they’re for...

 

[BonjourBonsai]

Never judge someone until you've walked a mile in his shoes. That way, when you do judge him, you're a mile away and you have his shoes."

Well said!

 

[HorseloverFat]

Well said!

What you’re just a mile further into your walk, next to a pissed off bare-foot guy, screaming for his shoes back?

 

[wireme]

VTI is good, it has the small caps.

QQQ is more of a “Technology” fund, which has been outperforming the rest of the market. I expect that to continue.

Here’s a small cap that I expect to launch any day now. Probably next week.

Been sitting on it since March at 1.4.
Famous last words. “Watch this”

Anyone reading, I’m absolutely the last guy you should listen to for this stuff.
Sorce, good luck man, I look forward to getting back on here soon, all my trees are good enough, a bit underworked because I’m overworked but otherwise in good shape. Us and the trees.

 

[El Duderino]

"Never judge someone until you've walked a mile in his shoes. That way, when you do judge him, you're a mile away and you have his shoes."

We all benefit from the great wisdom of Jack Handey! Well said.

 

[sorce]

Hardwork is part and parcel of getting what you want

I really really wish I haven't been so poisoned in finding out the "real truth" about hard work.

Meh...my own drive!

I put a stereo in our garaged unrunning 79 t-bird when I was in 8th grade.
Yeah ...sounds familiar!

I been trying to put my kids onto GaryVee. He says "don't listen to your parents", but everything else he has to offer is wonderful!

I been thinking about garage saling lately. Flipping on eBay.

Tell him NOT to get a job! But get his own!

Sorce

 

[sorce]

Good Discussion.

Sorce

 

[bwaynef]

I just read thru the last few pages of this thread while listening to the sounds of my 12 year old son push mowing the front grass for money. I bought the mower, but if he wants spending money he get's to push it each week. (That's not true. He does the front grass 1 out of every 4 weeks. The others? My 14 year old daughter, my 11 year old son, or my 9 year old daughter do it.)

 

[wireme]

Also meant to mention earlier, I hope everyone here is doing well. I’ve been away from social media, no clue what’s going on here or the bonsai world at large nowadays.

 

[Rafael Najmanovich]

There is a reason his moniker is "Nonsense Rascal". He just posts a ton.
The number of posts here has no relationship to bonsai experience, or the number and quality of trees people have.
Its simply the number of posts made.
Like many of us around here, his trees are inexpensive nursery and box store material under development.
Not everyone can afford true pre-bonsai material and nursery material gives us a way to enjoy the hobby without breaking the bank.

I don't know his collection (or yours) but I take your word for it. As far as affordability, impressive yamadori or yard-dory can be cheaply obtained with some planning/luck and of course it is possible to transform mundane nursery material into pieces to be proud of with the right technical knowledge and artistic eye - but it is true that none of the two correlate with number of posts here in this site. Sadly, many that read this site, particularly beginners, do make this mistake.

 

[HorseloverFat]

Beginners would ASK more questions.. this equals more messages..

Decent,respectable, experienced people with answers will always try to help someone in need.. this ALSO equals more messages.

People develop relationships based on these exchanges.. this creates dialogues.. which equals more messages.

There ARE those, who would come here simply to brag... never to help, work WITH individuals, OR to better themselves with anything us regular folk could POSSIBLY teach them... those people, although they have nice trees (in most cases, indirectly styled by their teachers), they have few messages... or close personal friends for that matter.

Almost like having good quality trees, and decent instruction actually make some people, horticulturally Unapproachable, and LESS beneficial to the Art/Community as a whole.

But hey, everyone’s different.

 

[badatusernames]

I'm glad it's working out for you buddy. The way I see it, unions are useless garbage. They promote mediocrity. And a new guy who doesn't know anything making the same wage as an experienced guy who actually knows what he's doing is absurd.
There was a time in this country when unions had their place. When for example, you worked in a coal mine, and were paid in special coal miner dollars that you could only spend at The Company Store that was owned by the coal mine.
Today however, equal Opportunity Employment laws and every other thing makes unions irrelevant and again, mediocre at best.

so you’re cool with amazon building a Goliath and inventing a shadow feudalism within an oligarchy? cuz that’s what’s happening

amazon is the company store

i don’t know why right and left cant both be like “oh we actually kinda believe the same things just in slightly different ways maybe unions do help us”

i see folks make such grandiose statements with such certainty and it’s like, ok but we have ~gestures at literally the entire country~ this to show what happens without unions but ok

for the record, this line of thought is actually against my best interest as a comfortable petit bourgeoise but man it’s still wild to read this sentiment

guess i still see myself as labor at heart even if i’m not. i was also a part of a successful unionization effort and was shop steward in a past life. bleeding hearts never heal, i suppose.

 

[badatusernames]

Plus, I honestly thought, if a domestic terrorist organization can raise 90million in a year, what the hell is 235k?

and this sentiment means i cant in good conscience buy pots from you any longer. sorry.

 

[Redwood Ryan]

Dang, this post is all over the place.

 

[badatusernames]

this is why i’m favorable to avoiding politics

it’s not like this is going to go anywhere but sometimes i see something and can’t not raise my hand