He Who Sees True Opportunities Shall Always Prosper

People lose their jobs. Often people are released, even from the best jobs they might have ever had. People may find themselves in a position where they cannot find a job that is as good as the one they lost. What is important, however, is what people do when they are in this position. I cannot tell you the number of people I have seen completely blow it when it came to reestablishing their careers, after losing their prior jobs. I do not want you to be one of these people. I grew up in a city called Grosse Pointe, outside of Detroit. Grosse Pointe is a city that is on a lake, and the larger, more expensive homes are all on or near the lake called Lake St. Clair. Moving away from Lake St. Claire the homes get less and less expensive, until eventually the neighborhoods become areas where men wander around in front of their quaint, run-down homes wearing wife-beaters, drinking beer, and working on their cars, whilst shouting at their wives from their driveways. This is the area where I grew up. In fact, I had a bunch of construction equipments that I parked in front of my house by the time I was 19, which fit in just fine. By the time I was in my early 20s, I had started what I am pretty sure was the largest asphalt sealing company in Grosse Pointe, working on the driveways and the houses of the wealthier home owners in the city. Most of my clients were in the homes that were closer to Lake St. Clair. I remember one of my wealthiest clients lived in a really large house near the water. He worked for IBM in Detroit. He purchased a new car every year, and whenever I would come by his house to do work, he would fill me in on his kids’ various accomplishments that year. Since his kids were my age it was always interesting hearing about what they were doing. “If he can get his grade point average up to a 2.7, then the Chicago-Kent Law School may admit him on probation!” he might tell me about one of his kids. His kids, like the kids of most of my clients, did not work during the summer. Instead, they typically spent their summers hanging out at country clubs around Grosse Pointe, traveling, and so forth. The fathers paid for these various pursuits. I resented kids like these to some extent, because they seemed to have such cushy lives, and were really able to enjoy and experience their youth in a much different way than I did. My own free time was pretty much consumed with doing work outdoors, whereas these groups of kids would pile into cars, go play tennis and golf, go to the pool, and so forth, and have great summers in all respects. Now, they never got very good grades or went to the best schools; however, none of this seemed to really matter that much. Back then in Detroit there was a bit of an “old boy network” that these kids knew would support them when they would get older. This sort of network was not really available in other parts of the city. The man never asked me any questions about myself such as where I lived, whether I went to school, etc. Although he seemed to lack a genuine personal interest in me, I still thought that he was a pretty nice guy in most respects. True, he was somewhat aloof, a little condescending, plus I was always a little jealous of his kids–but that was okay. I remember one day I was doing some work on his driveway, and his daughter, who happened to be my age and whom I did not know, came outside and started telling me all the stuff I was doing wrong on the driveway. She really talked down to me, which did not make me feel very good about myself, but I tolerated it as best as I could. I was unsure what this episode was really all about, but it was a bit humiliating because the girl was of my age and I had seen her around. She was as close to a debutant as you could get in Grosse Pointe, and was largely considered unattainable by guys who were her own age.

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