“You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake/you are the same decaying organic matter as everything else/we are all a part of the same compost heap/we are the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world/you are not your bank account/you are not the clothes you wear/you are not the contents of your wallet/you are not your bowel cancer/you are not your grande latte/you are not the car you drive/you are not your fucking khakis”

This is Your Life – The Dust Brothers

So I’m kind of cheating this week. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with the song from the Dust Brothers or the movie, “Fight Club” from which it’s taken. Instead of being lyrics per se, the music of the song is this ominous, droning techno-ish affair that plays itself out with quotes from the movie peppering the music — I’ll take it.

See, I don’t know about you, but I’m about tired of getting a trophy for second place, for being given an “atta boy” for average work and hearing “by golly, it’s all ok, you’re special and dawg gone it, people like you.” And more importantly, I’m really tired of that message being handed down to my son. Truth is, and we all know it, not everybody’s going to Harvard, we all can’t be the starting centerfielder for the Yankees and some of us just plain suck.

While I wouldn’t go so far as to equate second place with being the first place loser, I am very much of the opinion that we’ve done ourselves a huge disfavor with this touchy feely nonsense that says self-esteem is more important than achievement or that it’s ok to just give up because golly, you tried you’re best and that’s good enough. No, it isn’t.

How were you raised? Did that fly in your house? Well, maybe it did, maybe it didn’t but it sure as hell didn’t in mine.

I know it’s almost sacrilegious to say, but growing up, I hated football. But somewhere along the line I got it in my head I wanted to play, so I did and about mid-way through the season I wanted to quit. Imagine my shock and surprise when my parents were having none of that – “You started this season young man, you finish it and you darn well better get out there and put everything you have into it,” was the refrain I was greeted with when I gave my parents the news. And I did and I hated it – didn’t play again but I finished the season. So what, right?

Well, here’s the what – when did we loose that mentality? Where along the road did we all collectively decide that it was ok for our kids to quit on themselves? Certainly not everyone, but enough parents have taken this path that pretty much, starting with my generation, we’re raising a bunch of quitters who feel entitled to everything, who don’t think they have to work for anything and who have no real comprehension of what “hard” really is. So for those of you in the 40 and up bracket, you can pretty much stop reading this, you’re cut from a different cloth and this really isn’t applicable.

But to the rest, to those of my generation and those coming behind me I offer this – you’re not special, you’re not unique and we all need to reach down and grab a hold as they would say in the Marines. Take a look around you, at the country that we’re set to take the mantle of leadership. We need strong leaders; men and women of strong character, of iron clad determination with backbones forged of steel. Our road is going to be one of the most difficult; everywhere around us something is wrong. Study, study hard. For in addition to strength of character, we’ll be facing extreme challenges that will require the best and the brightest among us to step up with answers, let that person be you. You are the leaders of tomorrow and today you walk through the fires that will forge you for the future.