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This, perhaps? :)</p>
<p>jym-Nice catch !!!</p>
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<p>ROTFLOL!!!</p>
<p>This is one of the most entertaining and well-written ■■■■■■ we’ve had in awhile.</p>
<p>What always gives me a chuckle is when I state facts people consider that to be ■■■■■■■■.</p>
<p>I think the MArk Twain quote is about not arguing with a fool, as he would drag you down to his level and then beat you with experience.</p>
<p>“I make it up as I go along.” Winston Churchill</p>
<p>IP acts as a stand-in for Ayn Rand…</p>
<p>Now that was really low PM. And I thought we were friends …</p>
<p>Note to self: Pass on seeing “Atlas Shrugged”. Check.</p>
<p>Perhaps instead of attacking PM you might ask her why she thinks that, and what parallels she draws to Ayn Rand. Perhaps it would be enlightening</p>
<p>PM, Why do you think I am a stand-in for Rand? What parallels do you draw between me and Rand?</p>
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<p>Really? </p>
<p>I agree that upper middle class, managerial professionals have a lot of leverage in arranging work / family balance, but you seem to be completely unaware that not every working parent has that kind of job status. Do you think the waitress at the local diner doesn’t get docked pay if she attends the school play? How about policemen, firefighters and others where there is a critical physical presence, who cannot duck out during the day the way that white collar workers can?</p>
<p>On one hand, my physician husband has the flexibility to cut office hours short to attend the school play – his receptionist and nurses don’t have that power. OTOH, how can he tell a patient he’s just delivered that he’s sorry she’s hemorrhaging, but he’s got a school play to attend?</p>
<p>You need to have a lot more familiarity with a lot of other types of jobs / situations before you can make proclamations. Not every job is a white-collar, knowledge job where nothing will happen if you duck out for 2 hours in the middle of the day for the play and you just make up those 2 hours at night.</p>
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<p>Have you considered working on that? Where do you think he gets the impression that he has to win everything or else trouble will result?</p>
<p>Folks, we’ve got a poster here who put up nearly 100 posts yesterday. Today, it’s posting at a rate so far of about 1 poster every two minutes, starting less than 3 hours ago. </p>
<p>Fine to enjoy sparring with it, but that kind of posting profile is in no way consistent with anything else it’s telling us about its real life. Just something to keep in mind.</p>
<p>PG, I agree that there are many blue collar jobs without any flexibility. But people were talking about doctors and lawyers and MBAs in this thread, and how these folks dropped out of work because they had to put up with an inflexible 60 hour work week. I call BS on that.</p>
<p>As for my son, he gets it from his parents, of course! It’s a great thing. Stress harnessed properly makes for a real winner. You can’t let stress overwhelm you, but you need to tame it to fuel your killer instincts. That’s what I am working on with my son. What I tell him every time he walks into the court, for example, is that you know that you are the better player, so go bury the other kid. </p>
<p>Sometimes he goes up against a kid with superior skills. I then tell him that losing doesn’t matter, but he needs to put everything that he has to make the other kid work really hard to win each point. He also needs to figure out the weakness in the other kid’s game and exploit that. (I help him there of course.) It works great. The kid is a total fighter.</p>
<p>You believe that personal freedom and competition and individualistic pleasures supersede all else.
With 100% freedom, there is no guilt, no lack of choice, just actions, and predictability.</p>
<p>Such a libertarian view is predicated on having resources and intelligence, and is quite biased. Tough luck for those who have feelings, have less.</p>
<p>I am a “friend”, but I am not black and white about it. As you say, honesty is the best policy! I will respond to what you say without tarring you in one or another way. (My reference to Ayn Rand was neutral, btw.) The world full of various shades from white to black and all that is between.</p>
<p>You need to blow open your mind to see what all our differences are, yes, the nature of them, not just see that others ARE different. Walk in my shoes, others’ shoes. And merely to learn. Not to judge, change, disagree with, convert, or compete with, debate. THat is compassion and understanding. </p>
<p>Are you lonely, IP?
Do you have any feelings that just pop into your consciousness?
Do you ever feel badly for others, even if they do not fit your sense of order in the world?</p>
<p>Ah, but I also believe in rules and regulations and social safety nets and income redistribution and minority rights protection and all that. I am a left libertarian. Rand was a right libertarian.</p>
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<p>Just for the record, it was a tongue-in-cheek comment! It was not meant to be serious. </p>
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<p>I am just a little bored right now as the summer months are slow. But truth be told, empathy is something that I have always lacked. I am a super T on the MBTI type.</p>
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<p>But a trial lawyer can’t just reschedule the hearing with the judge, or miss a specific filing deadline because of the second-grade play. A surgeon can’t just reschedule surgery easily – do you know how many people are affected? A pilot or flight attendant can’t miss his or her flight. You are still projecting an upper middle class white collar workforce.</p>
<p>In some regards, as a senior vp of a consulting company, I have a lot of flexibility compared to my previous job as a director in a Fortune 500. I could work from home, I could take part of a day off and just do my work at nighttime, whatever. On the other, in other regards, I have less flexibility when it comes to when my clients want my time and if they want me in Philadelphia for November 12, well, that’s where I have to be. Everything in life is a tradeoff. Everything.</p>
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<p>But why is winning the goal? My D plays tennis and was on her varsity team. Our family values are that sports are valuable for exercise, recreation, fresh air and fun, but winning or losing is not really all that important. I don’t want her caring about “burying the other kid.” I hope she has fun. If she’s not the best player on the team, oh well. Who cares. It’s tennis – it’s nothing that’s important. It’s a good social skill that she can have as she gets older, and if she plays club tennis in college that will be a nice way to meet people. Nothing more.</p>
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<p>Confidence in one’s ability isn’t something that you talk someone into–your son either has it or he doesn’t. You can tell him he’s better than his opponent until the cows come home, but it (confidence) is something he has to internalize and believe. It’s got to be part of his personality. My oldest D was ranked (at different points in her career) from 3rd to 7th in the US in her sport–she went to every major competitive event (World Championships, Pan-Am Games, etc. etc.) in that sport with the exception of the Olympics. I didn’t teach her confidence–that came from within. I watched her meets, comiserated with her when she was down or had a bad compeition, took her to practices, paid for her training, etc. etc. Ultimately, however, her performance was up to her.</p>