The Path to Success

 by @Gitabushi

Check out this conversation. The Leftist is very *externally* focused.  He seems to think that someone else will decide if he is successful or not, and that his happiness depends on that external validation. (tagging in @AndToddsaid for fun)

If this were your class, what would your sign say?

— Matthew Penn (@MatthewPennMSU) September 10, 2020

Mine would be:

Path to Success:

• Get an education
• Get a job
• Get married
• Have children
• Stay married
• Do it in this order
• Get a house at some point
• Never blame others for your problems
• Never give up liberty for security, or lose both
• Ignore these rules, your life will suck

— @Gitabushi

1. The cost of education is well above what most people can pay.
2. Wages have been stagnant for decades, so it is next to impossible to afford educational costs without taking on crushing debt.
3. What does getting married or having children have to do with success?

— @MatthewPennMSU

1. Wrong (both my kids are in college, both getting STEM degrees and will graduate with zero help from me AND zero debt)
2. Wrong. Wages have nothing to do with education costs.
3. Everything. If you don't understand, you haven't been educated, you've been indoctrinated.

— @Gitabushi

"Stay married." How is Trump successful?
— @MatthewPennMSU

You seem to have the immature belief that "success" is something awarded to you externally.

I bet if you asked Trump, he could explain how his divorces caused him problems in his life.

But he got back on the path by staying married to Melania.

Now he seems to be pretty happy.
— @Gitabushi

Or am I mis-characterizing it?

I think there's some value in analyzing his argument.  TWICE he goes to "So someone childless and single can't be successful???"

Obviously, that misses the point.

Perhaps one of the fundamental attitudes of the Right is: I do what I want, and *I* decide if I'm successful, and screw what you think.

But the Left *is* always looking for validation.

Leftist LGBQTs demand their lifestyle be *celebrated*, not just accepted. Feminists demand to be Goddesses, that their every choice is praised.

This Leftist can't understand that the "Success" in Path to Success is just shorthand.

It's just a word that sums up being mostly satisfied with your life.

Few get everything they want. Most of us end up pretty satisfied with how life ends up, looking for elements of happiness.

As I say in the thread, I screwed up the order.

I had to join the Army because I didn't finish my education.

That made most of my 20s a financial struggle.

Does that mean I can't be successful?

No. It means I had to correct the problem in some way.

Learning how to get promoted in the Army is also a kind of education.

I chose to finish my degree and use that degree completion to apply for a jump in tiers to officer.

As an officer, I had to get a Masters degree to get promoted to O-4.

So I fixed the education problem.

As long as we're in True Confessions, I've also been divorced 3 times.

The reason I was divorced so many times is I was an optimist and didn't pay enough attention to the character of the woman I was trying to make a life with.

And military stress exacerbated problems.

Now, that could easily be me pushing off blame for my own mistakes on others.

But I am now successful. I made my 4th marriage stick. I learned, chose a woman with good character I can *trust* and built a life *with* her.

It doesn't mean I didn't make mistakes previously. 

It does mean that the mistakes I made didn't make me a bad person unworthy of love and unable to sustain a marriage.

Despite putting some of the blame on the military life pressure and some of the blame on the character of the woman I chose, I can also admit that my character was insufficiently refined/strong/good quality, and I had to change myself to be able to sustain a marriage.

But the point is:

I don't depend on someone else to tell me my life is a success. I know it is, because it is a success by my standards.

If you are single and childless and consider your life to be everything you want, then your life is a success, too, and you just chose your own path.

And that's okay.

But if at some point you feel lonely or unfulfilled because you have no children and no spouse to share it with, you cannot blame society. You cannot blame someone for lying to you. You cannot blame Not Enough Good Men/Women.

You chose a different path, and you live with it.

And we are all here today because we are biologically programmed to want to have immortality through children, and we do that most successfully with a mother AND father.

That's how it works.

There are exceptions. If you are an exception, great!

No one has to judge you a success, if you are one.

It isn't externally assigned.

But if you are unhappy or struggling in life, look at the path to success to see how you want wrong.

That's all.

And I'm struck by how what's-his-name harps on "You can't be a success if you don't follow that path????"

He wants external validation.

I think this is intertwined with the Participation Trophy generation.

It's why he thinks education automatically means crushing debt.

He thinks teachers are there to give him a playbook on life, and if he follows that playbook, he will be awarded Success and Happiness.

I have said before that the Leftists that push for a leadership role, like AOC, are actually terrified of life, and feel they can't control their own life, and so they get some sense of control in their own life by controlling others.

"See?  I made decisions that affect hundreds or thousands of hundreds of thousands of people!  They *elected* me to do this!  Therefore, I can't be a total fuckup.  Therefore, any problems I have are clearly racism, or sexism, or Capitalism"

Leftists want turnkey success, without risk, without effort.

They regurgitate Leftist doctrine and get As in secondary school, dutifully attend a "good" college, take out loans while taking 5-6 years to find themselves while getting a degree, end up not getting their dream job.

Then they blame Society for the bait and switch.

They don't blame the Marxists for lying to them.

They blame Capitalism...as they are taught to.

They are given a Marxist Path to Success

When it fails (as it inevitably does for anyone not connected to the Elite), they don't look to the actual Path to Success.

Why?

Because that path to success isn't turnkey.

Get an education. "How???  How do I pay for it?  Which school?  What degree?  Can I get a Gender Studies degree? Why won't you tell me exactly what I need to do to be successful in getting an education????"

But getting an education isn't turnkey.  You have to decide first what you want out of life, what you want in life, and then choose a career based on that, and then choose the knowledge you need to have that career, while paying as little for it as you can.

Not turnkey.

"Stay married"

absolutely not turnkey.  Staying married includes being very careful who you choose to marry, and both of you working to sustain it (so you have to not only choose someone YOU will sacrifice to stay with, but someone who will sacrifice to stay with YOU)

Above all, the true Path to Success requires personal responsibility, and living with the mistakes.

The Marxist Path to Success requires only mindless following of instructions from Gatekeepers, and if you don't get what you want, you can always blame an -ism.

Anyway, those are my thoughts, off the cuff.

Any responses or other thoughts?

(remember, people, when I get going, I don't stop to read responses. You're better off waiting until I'm done, whether that's 15 minutes or an hour)