I adhere to an entirely pull-oneself-up-by-one’s-bootstraps creed…

This post is being re-posted from a hockey coach’s corner of the world who pulled some excerpts from the “Dear Sugar Advice Column #91: The Big Life” from The Rumpus Blog.  A reader named “Wearing Thin” has asked Sugar why her life is so hard (blaming parents, financial stress coming from student loans, etc.)  Sugar has a lengthy response which is worth reading.  My new Blogger friend and I had landed on these nuggets coming from Sugar:

…As you and other long-time readers of this column may know, I’m a socialist at heart, but when it comes to the actual, individual way we live our lives, I adhere to an entirely pull-oneself-up-by-one’s-bootstraps creed. Nobody’s going to do your life for you. You have to do it yourself, whether you’re rich or poor, out of money or raking it in, the beneficiary of ridiculous fortune or terrible injustice. And you have to do it no matter what is true. No matter what is hard. No matter what unjust, sad, sucky things have befallen you. Self-pity is a dead end road. You make the choice to drive down it. It’s up to you to decide to stay parked there or to turn around and drive out….

…“So here’s the long and short of it, Wearing Thin: there is no why. You don’t have a right to the cards you believe you should have been dealt. You have an obligation to play the hell out of the ones you’re holding. And dear one, you and I both were granted a mighty generous hand.”