[Leon]

Originally Posted by Mark17

Is the Ivy grad school going to pay off? If so that money isn't lost. Tell your kid it's a zero interest loan that he can pay back, over time, when he's on his feet. If it isn't going to pay off (like, if he/she is a philosophy major) then why are you wasting your money? Let him/her put himself/herself through a cheaper school.

When I was in my mid 30s in 1994, my baseball card business died with the player strike. The only job I could find was making plastic bags for $6.00 an hour in a small factory in my rural area. I spent almost 4 years there, eventually moving into the office, but never making more than $9.85 an hour.

As soon as I took that job, I enrolled in the local community college and took computer classes. I knew nothing about computers before that. I spent 8 hours a day on my feet, pulling bags of that screaming, antiquated machine, fanning them so the melted seals didn't stick together, boxing them, over and over, and then went to class smelling of plastic. I took school more seriously than anybody; I bought the compiler (Pascal) for $50 (more than a full day's pay) and worked with it almost every minute I wasn't at work, in school, or asleep. After acing several classes I got into a grad program in computer science, worked and studied my tail off, and got a job with a Fortune 200 company 2 weeks after my 40th birthday. Salaried at $45,000, it was the first decent "real" job I ever had.

Just saying, you can be positive about your future and life in general, or you can be pessimistic. If you are pessimistic, you will not likely be successful because in your mind, failure is your expectation and that's what your outcome will be.

You control your life. People come to this country with nothing and succeed every day.

+1, that is the right attitude to have. When we fail it is our fault. When we succeed it is our fault. I have found that even when I am failing, if I am trying to get better, I still feel pretty good. It's not doing anything that is paralyzing and makes me feel bad
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