The Grass Isn’t Any Greener Than You Make It
Posted on July 27, 2007
My mother and father divorced when I was still an infant. I was 4 when my mother remarried in 1950 and moved with her new husband to the small coal mining town of War, West Virginia. There I spent my early childhood years fascinated by the rocket launches of Homer Hickam and the rocket boys who were featured in the movie October Sky. As I grew older, it became increasingly difficult for me to get along with my stepfather. Eventually I left home and moved to Abingdon, Virginia to live with my grandmother and finish my final year of high school. That was a stressful time when I thought life couldn’t get any worse, but in March 1963 things seemed to take a turn for the better. I located my biological father, Lee Summey, whom I’d never met.
The day following high school graduation, I packed my few worldly possessions into a cardboard box and boarded a bus for what I thought would be a better life. I didn’t know a sole in Asheville, North Carolina except my dad and his family, whom I had met only a couple of months before. Although I was coming to a strange town where I knew no one and had no job, I felt life would have to be better than what I had experienced up until then. For the first time, I felt I was in greener pastures and my hopes for the future soared.
I quickly learned that my dad was not the man of means he had made himself out to be. He was a bookkeeper for a small coal and oil company and lived in a very modest three bedroom, one bath block home. He dabbled in the stock market, owned a few utility stocks, drove a fancy new Buick and always wore a suit and tie–even when he mowed the lawn. He loved to give the impression that he was a heavy hitter. This was strange to me, since I’d grown up in a family where discussions of money centered more on what we didn’t have than what we did.
From the first day we met, my dad tried to impress me with how smart he was and how much he was worth. The longer I lived with him, the more I came to realize that there were vast differences between us. He was an ultra conservative who was extremely reluctant to try anything new. The small salary he earned from his boring bookkeeping job coupled with a monthly check his second wife received courtesy of her family enabled him to maintain a secure, but humble lifestyle. With his assistance, I got a job in a textile mill making slightly more than minimum wage. This was a far cry from the abundant lifestyle I had hoped for when I moved to be with him.
I had grown up in a household where it was a struggle week to week just to pay the bills and keep food on the table. It didn’t take long for me to see that my dad’s idea of a safe secure job would, at best, leave me stuck with that same lifestyle. I wanted more than that and I wasn’t afraid to take a few risks to make it happen. This difference in our thinking produced some heated arguments and led to him kicking me out of the house when I quit the security of the factory to take a commission only job selling encyclopedias door-to-door.
This experience taught me two key lessons. One: The grass may be greener on the other side of the fence, but it has to be mowed too. The wonderful life I thought I would have with my newfound father just didn’t happen. Two: I had to get better if I expected my life to get better. I could whine and complain all day, but all it ever got me was a little sympathy. If I wanted more from life, I not only had to do more, but I also had to develop stick-to-itiveness. It was a hard lesson to learn, but one that has served me very well over the years.
I tell this story because many people have told me they would do more with their lives if they had been given the same opportunities as me. When they learn that I didn’t inherit my success, their next thought is that I must have achieved it through some ill-gotten gain. Why are people so skeptical? Have we regressed to the point where people think financial success is something you take from others rather than earning it?
Here’s a tip! Everyone has problems. It’s how we handle these challenges that determine our success or lack thereof. Anyone can point out the problems; it’s the people who can solve them that make the big bucks. When Saddam Hussein was driven from Kuwait during the first Gulf War, he set fire to the Kuwaiti oil fields. The entire world saw the problem, but it took Paul N. “Red” Adair to put out the fires and he’s the one who got the big bucks for doing so.
It’s doubtful you’ll ever have to deal with problems the magnitude of those oil fires, but of the ones you do encounter, you will find that your life and your finances will improve in direct proportion to your ability to handle them. Remember this! Anyone can be a quitter! That takes no talent and offers no rewards. If you want more from life, become a problem solver, not a problem.
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