Blog Dis

It's the opinion of many middle-aged professionals and beyond that we're raising freeloaders who are ultra-sensitive, yet insensitive to the elderly, to the struggles of others, so long as their personal struggle is the primary highlight and concern of others. In contrast, the very young naturally take an opposite view, that their struggle is very much real, in a world seemingly spinning out of control, and that the opportunities enjoyed by previous generations had it much easier.

Perspective is a snake that side-winds, rather than make straight lines.

And, sympathy belongs in the dictionary between sh*t and syphilis. This unfeeling expression was a favorite of a now deceased man, who never hesitated to rip off that band-aid, to expose wounds. In his generation, he'd been thrown to the wolves by his family, when it came to becoming a young adult, and who learned early on that no one was coming to his rescue, that if he had wanted to graduate with a degree that it was up to his ingenuity and willpower to find a way to pay for his education at an institute of higher education.

It seems harsh doesn't it? Or is it in fact harsh?

How do you prepare your fledgling young champions (whose parents may also be inclined to refer to them as young idiots) to handle the real world? Shielding your kids from the realities of life and its unfairness, its challenges will only build into them the perception and expectation to be saved, time and again. Whereas, those young adults who were not shown preferential treatment are not so coincidentally the same ones who make their own way in this world, for the better. Without doubt, their experience with disappointment may have come too early vs some whose personal experience with disappointment wasn't experienced until much later in their life, when their life didn't roll out the way they had anticipated.

Disappointments and expectations, two sides of the same coin that no higher level of education can teach you. Venturing out into the world is the key, rather than to remain at home with mommy and daddy, who find it easier to continue to provide a soft landing, in a house of padded rooms where not a single head-bump will be endured. I've asked myself this question too, that if my parents had enough coin to send me to University all expenses paid, would I have taken it, and become the person that I am today? A reasonable answer to my own rhetorical question would be to say, yes. I'd have surely leapt at the offer. And no. I wouldn't have turned out the same. Though the irony is that despite having studied political science, and cutting my teeth working in a political environment for nearly a decade, I was drawn nonetheless to creative writing, from the age of six years. I understood innately as a young idiot that nobody was going to take care of me, and that without having my own purchasing power I'd be reliant on someone else. The very idea of this is intolerant to me. Yet, I've met authors who don't work, other than write, and who are supported by their partners. These are the same authors who declare to me, "I don't think I could cope with working full-time and writing."

You'd be amazed by what you're capable of handling, but only when you actually handle the impossible.

Here is the dividing line: to become an independent spirit or dependency? The very notion of me being dependent on someone else, in order to be able to write, rubs me the wrong way. I've written throughout every career change from an environment in the public service to the private industry; all during these job stints I've continued to write. One could say that my fate was predetermined in my mind and desires, rather than to struggle in my young life to find what turns my crank. I've watched enough documentaries on my travels into TV-land to know that musicians greatly benefit being raised in families where one parent or both are musically inclined. Yet, some musicians are also lone soldiers in their family, and are driven by their own engine to pursue a life of music, even if it means having to bite their tongues to handle a no-brainer job, just to be able to make music, to get up on stage and perform.

Freeloaders need not apply to the latter option of going forward on your own steam. Freeloaders want you to understand that your sympathy means a great deal to them, and they're actually quite content taking an easy route, rather than to have to fight, to push that boulder up that impossible hill. Freeloaders live with themselves quite easily, in fact. I've known one or two in my life. I've made snide remarks to a family member that freeloaders become masters of deflection, to re-direct their plight onto the shoulders of someone more capable, so that they may ride their coattails to get what they really want out of life, which is to be handed everything. This approach seems even harder to me, and I ask myself just how do they look at themselves in the mirror at the end of the day.

I'll never lose sight of this poignant expression: if you want to get something done, give it to the busiest person. That statement seems counter-intuitive, but after having worked in a professional environment for decades, I've seen every variety of worker; the dodger, the freeloader, the incompetent manager, the two-faced user, the failing upward half-assed worker, as well as the ones who are fair-minded, who simply want to manage their workload, after which they'd like to go on their merry way to leave their work doing what they want to do.

In formal working structures, one trait of being a good manager is being able to motivate people to give more, without immediate reward. This is a skill. Motivation can be shown in a fancy presentation; what you have to do to pull up your enthusiasm, to focus on your tasks, and what you need to do to get ahead in a field where there's competition. What these presentations fail to do is to teach young professionals how to cope with setbacks, the inevitable disappointments. I've observed time and again how a minor setback will be dealt with by cutting loose, to run to a new situation. So after one year of trying really hard to show that they can work hard, when their career doesn't roll out the way they expect it to, their response is to change companies to bring them the benefits they rightly deserve. However, this strategy only puts them back at the starting point, the bottom of the pecking order.

It's a fascinating process to talk to young, up and coming professionals. I had the opportunity to do this every time I'd step into my side-role when I worked at a professional services firm. Some would make sincere inquiries as to how long it would take them to make it to the Executive level. I wouldn't deceive them. I'd rip off that Band-Aid and tell them that you have to be prepared to work really hard for a minimum of ten years, and even then maybe 13 to 15 years, after which once you get where you want to be, you'll start all over again at the bottom, to re-build your reputation based on your new elevated status as an Executive. I could always tell those that would be around for a longer period of time vs the freeloaders who were in it for the quick-buck, to land a plumb salary, and expect to achieve amazing results in one year. This is a fallacy. Fallacy is the fuel of freeloaders. It's not a kind way of describing their character, and if some take offence, know that I don't care if my words upset you. The hard reality about life is that you may spend your adult life striving to achieve a level that is only enjoyed at the mid-point of your life, or even toward the end.

Then there are authors, fledging authors, who when they begin their writing journey, will discovery very quickly on that writing is bloody hard. The amount of unpaid hours is staggering, hours that you'll never get back in your life. Keep in mind, however, that your scars of hard work will remain with you forever, as will your steel resolve to continue to work hard. Every new novel you begin will be harder to perfect than the last one. I also hear a lot about AI now, and how authors are being accused of using AI to write their books, and this may very well be the case. There are other authors, however, who've no intention of using AI because it'll mean they'll lose that intimate connection with their work; they'll know in their heart of hearts that a freeloader is the kind of author who leans on AI, to take the easy way out.

You can tell yourself all the lies you want, about how brilliant you are, how successful you are, but these delusions won't change the fact that they're all lies. This is the reason why I won't or rather why I refuse to read some authors, who pen an outline of a novel, and then hand over their notes to ghost writers to finish the job, which is no different than using AI. I don't care how many novels they sell or how popular they're viewed by the reading public, these types of authors are frauds to me.

The truth will follow you from behind. The truth will trip you up at the most inconvenient time, like some huge boulder in front of you, that you've decided isn't worth the effort to push up, to get where you want to go. Go around it, maybe, but you'll know in the end that the truth will still follow you regardless up until the day you die.

Don't be afraid to work hard.

Freeloaders can even make a name for themself, off someone else's hard work. We all know the billionaire innovators out there, who latched on to the brilliant idea of someone else. Again, however, that boulder of truth will follow them into the future, and well beyond their death. I'm reminded of Mark Twain's expression: a lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.