Pull Yourself Up by Your Bootstraps
To pull yourself up by your bootstraps (bootlaces) sounds impossible. With your boots on your feet, how can you lift yourself by the straps?
You can’t. Yet many people lift themselves from what appear to be impossible circumstances every day.
My parents and many of their generation:
- Grew up poor
- Had parents die young
- Received little formal education
That sounds like the perfect formula for failure. Nevertheless, most of them live happy, productive lives. They pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and:
- Did what they had to do to make a living
- Loved and provided for their spouses and children
- Returned to school as adults or became self-taught
- Spent what they had, not what they hoped to earn
They never whined about their losses. Instead, they did their best each day and helped others do the same. No one picked them up and carried them. They did it themselves, as they said, “with the good Lord’s help.”
Life’s not always fair. They accepted that reality. They made the best of their circumstances.
I salute them, one and all.
“All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty” (Proverbs 14:23).
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