Quote from Trader666:
Life is much more what you make of it than luck. Instead of making up stories to reinforce your thinking, how about finding real life examples to challenge it? I don't buy your argument about weight either because you just need to burn more calories than you take in and unless there's a serious metabolic disorder it's a simple matter of diet and exercise. Too many people want the "gain" of fitness but are unwilling to take the "pain" of controlling what they eat and working out.
I knew somebody wasnât going to buy a made up story which I basically made up through many stories that I have heard about. So here goes a couple of real life ones.
I used to own a store in the local mall for about 6 months. It didnât work out for a variety of reasons and I lost a lot of money. But the clothing store next to me was owned by the operator who works there 7 days a week. Heâs been in the mall for about 10 years. When I was there, he was doing good business. Heâd often do 2-3k in sales a day and a few days in December, he did up to 8k in a day. I closed up my store, but we are now good friends and I go up there a couple of times a week to see how heâs doing. Well over the past 2 years his sales have come to a crumbling halt. People donât have any money anymore. In general the mall has been going downhill for awhile, losing many good stores.
He has been trying to renegotiate his lease for some time now, but thereâs not much he can do. Some days now he may only do $200 a day. He has burned through his savings of many years and now owes the mall a lot of money. I guess they are reluctant to kick him out because they wonât find a permanent store to replace him. There is really nothing he can do. Also he used to be able to provide a few part time jobs, but now he canât.
Second story. I guy I work with just told me he was about to get a temp job until they checked his credit. He doesnât have any credit cards or anything, but had a small outstanding medical bill that he didnât pay and also he owes the irs from a few years ago. The temp agency saw this and said they couldnât give him the job because of it. So basically he wasnât given a job so that he could better pay his bills because he didnât pay his bills because he didnât have a job. That makes a whole lot of sense. I can understand a background check, but it seems like punishing people for relatively little mistakes is not the best way to help them not make them again in the future.
Thirdly, I have been actively looking for a new job for awhile now. I at least have a job that I can make a little money at, but itâs not what it used to be. I have probably sent out more than 100 resumes or messages left. I had gotten one call back. Thatâs it. I saw many jobs for shipping and receiving clerk jobs that I thought Iâd be great at. I explained in the cover letter that I have sold and shipped over 2000 items on eBay with 100% positive feedback. Didnât matter. I know they probably just saw the pizza delivery and skipped me. My parents were getting mad at me one night and all I could say is I donât know what else to do. I call. They donât call me back. I call again, they still donât call. I send resumes to no avail. I go to local stores and ask if they have any excess inventory that I could buy and sell on eBay. Either they never do or the mark up is not sufficient. My parents didnât buy it. They think that if you plant a seed in life, something is supposed to grow, but a lot of times it doesnât .
Well about 2 weeks ago, I suddenly get 2 job offers at once, one that I applied for 2 months ago. I am now working at that one, and have to pass the training in the other one, which Iâm doing now. This is in addition to still deliverying pizza, which I have to keep because both new jobs are temporary. So you see I did nothing different, but I got a different result. My parents are now happy for me because I am working all day now. But I didnât do anything different than what I was doing before with a different result. Why did they call me? I donât know. But as long as they do, Iâm going to try to take advantage of it. I can say from my experience, those that donât work hard, wonât get ahead. But I can also say, that just because you work hard, doesnât mean that you will get ahead.
Iâm sure youâll spin all of this, and frankly I donât care. Youâll bash all my examples for what people did because you already know the end result. I always talk about real life issues and stories affecting people. You just bash away. But you have yet to provide even one story of someone who filed bankruptcy because he bought too many big screen tvâs.
Now go ahead and rip away at me. I have to go to work now.
