What you do with your time is important
The Liberals truly believe that we all should be alike - not equal opportunities but equal outcomes. After all, we are all equals, right?
Wrong. While we are all equal in the eyes of our Constitution and the Bill of Rights, we are not all equal when it comes to talent and inherent horsepower. The Political Correctness troops may rail against this truth, but it is truth none the less. There are people out there that are stupider than moi; conversely, I know that there are a whole bunch of people that are far smarter than I!
The PC folks also miss on yet another very important factor - one that is often of more importance than inate brainpower - motivation. I know that there are folks out there that have better educations, are smarter, and have higher IQs than I, yet I have succeeded in life far beyond them. Why?
Plain and simple - I've outworked them. And this seems to be true almost all the time - most often, the most successful people (depending on the parameters of how you define success) are those that work hardest at what they do. And rightfully, should be considered to be the best at what they do!
Once again, from Greg Mankiw's site shows some research into this idea that the successful among us are different from those that are not:
The Downside of Affluence
According to research by Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel Prize-winning behavioral economist, quoted in an article in the Washington Post, "being wealthy is often a powerful predictor that people spend less time doing pleasurable things and more time doing compulsory things and feeling stressed."
People who make less than $20,000 a year, for instance, spent more than a third of their time in passive leisure, like kicking back and watching TV. By contrast, those making more than $100,000 a year (I would call them affluent, not wealthy), spent less than a fifth of their time in passive leisure.
Moral - if you want to be successful, when you get home from work, go back to work (at something). While the research is in terms of just financial gain, this is true of almost any activity in life - you gotta work at it. Saddly, this work ethic seems to be a vanishing mantra from society at large (or, at least that portrayed in the media).
There are no entitlements that will make you successful - I wish our government would learn that and translate that into real policies.
Last note: Robert Frank wrote the source column that Manikow quotes. When I look at that column, it is just dripping with class envy from this Liberal. I have a problem with labeling it the Downside of Affluence - there are many people that say we Americans work too hard - be like the Europeans! I look at the European lifestyle - frankly, they can keep it. Hemmed in by far more regulations than we are, taxed at much higher rates, they have been lulled into believing that their governments will take care of them. What those that believe the "European way" is best is that Europe is in trouble in a number of areas; big trouble.
