@unclemark Altho I do think there are some recognized community measures. By 32 I captained a top ten D1 team in the ncaa tourney. Played a professional sport and was drafted by mls. I owned an Audi, a landrover, a condo and a house. I had a masters degree a law degree and passed multiple bar exams and worked for a very exclusive firm. I could bench 285 go out til 4 am and work a 12 hour day the next day t day. I think anyone would say that’s aa successful dude.
in the twenty years after I can’t think of one thing to boast about. Getting hot chicks I guess. But is that something to be proud of. Not really. . Homerun f you money case never came. Or I never won it. Entrepreneurship has been sustaining and nothing more. Have two kids a decade apart with separate moms who are growing up in this weird environ.
I am content. Ish. But not successful. So definitely that middle market. I identify more with failure tho. So like hooky’s quote keep going
I appreciate your response. Really. But it also is an example of what I see so often (and what many times pisses me off). How so, you say? The emphasis on your early professional and financial "success."
@unclemark I think it’s more of setting goals and meeting them. Setting out to be a D1 and pro soccer player and doing it. Setting out to be a great student and doing it. Setting out to be a lawyer and doing it. Setting out to work for an exclusive premier firm and doing it. To me those are all successes. I can’t think of one thing like that in 20 years now. I can’t think of a single “success” in two decades
@unclemark I think it’s more of setting goals and meeting them. Setting out to be a D1 and pro soccer player and doing it. Setting out to be a great student and doing it. Setting out to be a lawyer and doing it. Setting out to work for an exclusive premier firm and doing it. To me those are all successes. I can’t think of one thing like that in 20 years now. I can’t think of a single “success” in two decades
Fair enough. I would only add that it was you who chose to list all the "stuff" -- "I owned an Audi, a landrover, a condo and a house." I'll not belabor this further.
@unclemark belabor. i think it's almost more interesting than anything. to me that is one measure of success. i actually really like this topic a lot. if you pinned me down today and said success or failure i'd say failure. but you keep fighting. and for me that's why the notion of this mayor in ny and aoc and the rest are so dangerous. they eliminate that modelo fighting spirit. and i don't mean the technical realities like corp inversions and all that shit but that spirit inside all of us. to accomplish. to build. i have been an abject failure imo in that regard. but i'll keep going until that's not true. if i have to turn it over to the gov and not my family. my kids. i won't. not in a billion years. i will bust my ass to make my kids proud and leave them a legacy. i will not for the gov and people i detest
This reply functionality blows.
Hope is not optimism, which expects things to turn out well, but something rooted in the conviction that there is good worth working for. - Seamus Heaney, Irish poet and likely Hoosier basketball fan.
POTFB
The real world.We’re all different and success is a continuum based on all the other things in that quote other than the persistence and effort.
Thanks for this hooky. I think we are sometimes limited in our thinking by language -- what do you call whatever lies between success and failure?
@unclemark You get pissed at someone's financial and professional success? Or people talking about it? Or that it is a measuring stick? Or that it is too overemphasized?
I'd agree with the last one. And maybe a 32 yr. old McMurt might have overemphasized it. I don't think the 50ish version here does.
Our system just doesn’t support a viable third party. If there is ever a viable third party, it will swap spots with one of the big two and the loser will fade into obscurity. RIP #Whigs
if we want the “common sense” approach (see note below), ranked choice voting would make a ton of sense.
example:
Candidate 1: 30 on a 0-100 scale, 15% vote
Candidate 2: 40, 40%
Candidate 3: 75, 45%
currently, the more extreme candidate wins with a minority of voters. Ranked choice, the more moderate wins if they presumably carry more of the extreme voters as 2nd choice.
RCV doesn’t necessarily always work this way, but it gives options to get candidates to best reflect voter preference vs districts created in a manner that only the primary is competitive and it’s a race to the political bottom/extreme
Note: I don’t think “we” do want a common sense approach. We just like saying we do. It makes us feel good. And since most everyone feels that THEY have common sense, what they really mean is that they want a party that would make the same decisions that they personally would.
You get pissed at someone’s financial and professional success? Or people talking about it? Or that it is a measuring stick? Or that it is too overemphasized?
It's the tendency for people to pass judgment based on the size of ones wallet and/or ones professional standing. We've got one poster here that's blatant about it. Others are less so, but you can see/hear it in how they interact with others whose level of attainment may not be high enough in their eyes.
You get pissed at someone’s financial and professional success? Or people talking about it? Or that it is a measuring stick? Or that it is too overemphasized?
It's the tendency for people to pass judgment based on the size of ones wallet and/or ones professional standing. We've got one poster here that's blatant about it. Others are less so, but you can see/hear it in how they interact with others whose level of attainment may not be high enough in their eyes.
It's an interesting critique Mark. Money is important, it makes life a lot easier. But study after study has been done that shows after a certain threshold it doesn't necessarily make you happier.
I get mad at leftists, and you are guilty of this often for sure, who begrudge other people their money. It should be taxed without end, they didn't earn it, etc. It's nothing more than envy and I find it disgusting.
I get mad at leftists, and you are guilty of this often for sure, who begrudge other people their money. It should be taxed without end, they didn’t earn it, etc. It’s nothing more than envy and I find it disgusting.
I defy you to find where I've taken these positions.
You get pissed at someone’s financial and professional success? Or people talking about it? Or that it is a measuring stick? Or that it is too overemphasized?
It's the tendency for people to pass judgment based on the size of ones wallet and/or ones professional standing. We've got one poster here that's blatant about it. Others are less so, but you can see/hear it in how they interact with others whose level of attainment may not be high enough in their eyes.
I think the people who resort to those sorts of judgements do so because deep down they recognize themselves as failures in some other ways, so they deflect to the one measurable that makes them feel successful.
I think the people who resort to those sorts of judgements do so because deep down they recognize themselves as failures in some other ways, so they deflect to the one measurable that makes them feel successful.
Maybe. Perhaps. Could be.
Or maybe they're just assholes.
@goat i think that's the case for all of us. i think our "success," achievements define us. separate us. give us pride. in all my years practicing law not one other lawyer ever said a thing about the practice, or anything, but i can't tell you how many have said "hey i heard you were a great soccer player." "hey i heard you played at." money is just one marker of success, but if it is self earned it's definitely one. personally i think that drive to achieve is what makes us. that competitive nature. otherwise what are we really doing. just hanging out? so what. i always tell me daughter. be something. BE somehting. you'll be so grateful later. be an athlete. be an actor. be the smart kid. be the kid who plays piano. BE something. but so far it's not in her nature. she just doesn't have aspiration or that competitive drive.
it's one of the things i don't like, among many, about AI. it's going to make things too easy. easy isn't good for our nature. isn't good for our souls. hanging out. just beign good nice people. it's not enough. being a good person is a base expectation. it's really not anything
@mcm666 Mark wasn't talking about people who measure their own success by money or professional status. He was talking about people who judge others by that metric. By all means, you should feel proud of whatever type of success you consider important. But there's no need for you to go out of your way to highlight others who you feel rank below you. I'm saying I think people who do that probably deep inside feel they lack in other areas, so they feel the need to denigrate others in this area to artificially build themselves up.