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208 pages, ebook
First published January 1, 2022
Never put your personal decisions to a vote.
My father was a veteran of two wars, and although he retired from active duty in the 1950s, there was a measure of discipline in our household. Walk straight, shoulders back, don’t slouch. … Don’t let them catch you doing nothing, or they would find a chore for you to do. ...
… My dad didn’t say I needed to get better grades, merely that I had to work up to my potential. … That may appear to be a liberating way to have your parents think about failing grades. In reality, you become haunted by never doing enough, that you are failing to do as much as you are actually capable of.
… I also cleaned factory toilets one summer in the plant where my dad worked. There were at least a thousand people working there, and I cycled through every bathroom facility between 9:00 and 5:00. I had a supervisor, who inspected my work, but he often got to bathrooms I had cleaned first thing in the morning many hours later, after hundreds of people had used them. When he criticized my work, I complained about it to my dad. His answer was stark: “Well, those are the kinds of people you will be working for if you don’t get better grades.” I was 16.
This mentality of living up to your potential has kept up with me ever since. … This is a hard model: you never feel you are doing enough, and a sense of malcontent hovers over you. You need like-minded people around you for this to work.