You are not a victim

www.americanthinker.com

After I graduated from college, I was stuck in a horrifyingly boring role at a market research firm.

My job was essentially to build machine learning algorithms to clean up large chunks of data. I never said the role wasn’t important to the success of the company. But important and interesting don’t always go together.

Using three monitors, I spent most of my waking hours trapped inside Excel spreadsheets. I commuted nearly two hours each way to work, and even though I sat in a cubicle with twenty other colleagues, mere inches from my desk, I had almost no human interactions, except with the nice lunch lady at the cafeteria.

Each day, I longed for brighter days, and I starred at the Invictus Poem, by William Ernest Henley, that I had pinned to my bulletin board.

Yes, that’s the same poem that Nelson Mandela credited with helping him survive 27 years in a prison cell on Robben Island.

Pretty soon, I too was reciting it from memory.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul ...

Now, I’m not by any means comparing my experience at a market research firm to being in a prison cell for over a quarter-century — but the point is, sometimes, in order to reach a level of success, we all have to find ways to survive, especially when we’re stuck doing something we don’t want to do.

It seems to be fashionable these days to claim victimhood status, or throw around self-fulfilling prophecies such as “I’ll never get that job, or have the type of career I want, because ‘the system’ is stacked against me.”

Supposedly, if you look a certain way, or your skin is a particular color, you are a victim the second you come out of the womb.

Now, I know I’m a white man, so I’m not supposed to be saying this, but the fact is, that is complete hogwash. Not only is it not true, but even if it were, what kind of mindset is that?

I’ll answer that rhetorical question for you: It’s a garbage mindset.

That’s not to say this great country, called the United States of America, which just celebrated its 250th birthday, is not without sin, or that slavery was not a blemish on our country’s history, or that laws in the past were not racist and bigoted.

But dare I say, in the year of our Lord 2026, we’re doing pretty well for ourselves? Are we perfect? No. Are there still racists out there? Yes. Are they in positions of power, and keeping minorities down, today? For the most part, I think not.

If you were a successful basketball coach, you wouldn’t tell your players, “You have no shot of winning this game because the other school is undefeated, and three of their starting players are being recruited to play Division One basketball.”

I’m not saying you should lie to your team and say it’s going to be easy to defeat Goliath, or that they will be victorious. But if you were a good basketball coach, you would tell your players,

“Let’s play our game, let’s move the ball, let’s make the extra pass, let’s box out, let’s crash the boards, let’s hustle back on defense, let’s call out the switches — if you lose track of the person you’re guarding — let’s take smart shots, let’s not make stupid fouls, let’s not give anything away.”

The team still has to be able to execute, which is no easy task. But even though his team may still end up losing the game, it doesn’t mean the players didn’t gain something of value from that experience, or that they won’t win games in the future.

The point is, I don’t care who you are, or what your skin color is — you need to put in the work to achieve positive results. Now, maybe if you’re the son of an heiress, you won’t have to work as hard as the son of a plumber, but let’s be honest: Won’t it feel that much sweeter if the son of the plumber scores a job on Wall Street, or finds his way onto a Hollywood film set, without the help of Daddy making a few phone calls praising the work ethic of his lazy and incompetent son?

And for the record, it’s not the fault of the heiress’s son that you don’t have a job, or that you need to work even harder to secure the type of positive future that you want for yourself. What is he supposed to do, not take advantage of his connections and give all of his money to you? Is that what you would do if you were in his situation?

What’s worse — believing the lies of someone else, who doubts your abilities and questions your potential, because of your physical characteristics, or having confidence in yourself that, despite obstacles and disadvantages, you will still find a way to obtain your goals and live out your dreams?

I think we both know the answer to that.

We must never forget that the United States is still the land of opportunity, and it remains a beacon of hope and a pillar for living out the American Dream.

Here’s to 250 more years of living in the most prosperous country on earth!

David Keltz is the author of the new book Life Sucks, but Your Life Doesn’t Have To: How To Build Confidence and Find Purpose in A Turbulent World.

Image: JSMed via Pixabay, Pixabay License.