We hear all the time about positive thinking, visualizing the things we want, pushing through to our goals.  These are all good ideas, even if each one is often positioned on a greased, tilted incline. 

You work for someone who doesn’t pay you.  They tap dance when confronted.   If you become angry they will never pay you.  If you remain mild, they will never pay you.  If they intend never to pay you, they will never pay you.   You can visualize the amicable resolution of this vexing situation:  a check that doesn’t bounce and a post-it note apologizing for the delay and thanking you for your patience.  Outside of visualizing that, have a nice day.

Today a Canadian, apparently, read my first post on this blahg which contained this paragraph:

I don’t mean to sound peevish, living in this moment in time when literally any idiot can wax philosophical over them internets, but I probably am peeved.   I have hard work to do, and I need a bit of luck.   Thomas Jefferson noted that his luck was multiplied many times over by his constant hard work.   I wonder, listlessly, if he really worked harder than most of his 300 slaves on the inherited plantation where the master worked so hard improving his luck, and the cause of human freedom.  It is beyond doubt that his luck was much better than their’s.

If you inherit a vast estate, and hundreds of slaves, it is much easier to become the Author of Liberty than if you are born a slave on a plantation by the Chesapeake Bay, as the brilliant and courageous Frederick Douglass was.  Though it can go either way, clearly, having no need to worry about survival, or beatings, or laws against your basic human rights, makes it easier to think positively, visualize (and buy) the things you want, push towards your goals.  Money, social prestige and power go a long way to making a lot of those hard work leads to luck type deals turn out luckier than no money, no social standing and only the power of one’s beliefs do.

That said: you’ve got the power.  It may be harder to launch a successful business with no money, no financial backers to speak of, no experience in business, but it is not impossible.  If you want it enough, believe in it enough, work hard enough, undaunted by the extreme difficulty of success, by setbacks, by the staunch disinterest of virtually everyone you know, you may succeed.  It cannot be denied that you are the only person who has the power.

We Americans learn early, and are reminded often, those of us not born booted and spurred to ride the backs of everybody else, that we are fungible drones, born to serve in fear of losing our health insurance, our pensions, our lives.  We are taught that we can only achieve the American Dream (being fantastically wealthy) by working harder, for more hours than the next fungible drone.  This next drone is not a colleague or comrade but a competitor.  There are only a few seats at the table, and most are already taken.  Ready, gladiators?  

Ah, but I am just being peevish.  I have no fear of losing my health insurance, pension or life.  I am blessed to live in comfortable circumstances.  I could have been born, like a billion or more others, without basic sanitation, without drinking water, in a toxic slum where the odds of even living to adulthood are ten million times worse than mine.  

The fact remains, difficult and problematic though it may also be, you’ve got the power.   The trick is figuring out how to harness that power and use it consistently and positively.  A tricky trick, no doubt, but we are ingenious bastards, those of us who would be the Authors of Liberty but are not born as Philosopher Princes.