If you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich?
If You're So Smart, How Come You Ain't Rich? by Louis Jordan
I have always thought that the above phrase should replace “In God We Trust” as the national motto, in the same way that that phrase took over from “E Pluribus Unum” in 1956. We had to remind everyone that unlike those godless commies, we red-blooded Americans believed and trusted in God, not Stalin or Chairman Mao. E Pluribus Unum, a phrase first used on coins and printed money in 1795 has not gone away, but let’s face it, the Apollonian ideal of individuals from many nations coming to form one united people had kind of run its course by the 1950s. Do you want us to welcome brown people or godless bolsheviks from who knows where to form a nation with us, Comrade? Sounds pretty pinko to me, you reefer smoking beatnik—I’ll bet you’re one of those free love types too. But hasn’t “In God We Trust” been upstaged by “If you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich?”
I mean we elected a president who is the living embodiment of this phrase. Never mind that he lacks the capacity for abstract thought or that he speaks as though a neural network created an approximation of speech synthesized from extracts of Fox News, book reports by fourth graders that did not actually read the book, and the dialogue of the rich kid villains in multiple 80s teen movies. But, he’s rich and therefore wise.
And I’m poor, so what right do I have to insult his intelligence? After all he’s rich, and therefore smart. I have worked for minimum wage for too many rich men who couldn’t pour water out of a boot (if you printed the instructions on the heel) to ever believe that being rich is in any way connected to intelligence. There are vast numbers of people in our nation that believe that our fearless leader’s wealth is proof of his stable genius. And that I’m just a hater and loser, a snowflake etc. The fact that many of them are as poor or poorer than I am makes no difference.
“The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on its wall asking this cruel question: ‘if you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich?’
Taken from Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
I, like many others, encountered this phrase when I first read Slaughterhouse Five, but I feel like it was the subtext of any conversation that I had with any disappointed authority figure. As a “gifted and talented” kid who was also an incorrigible underachiever, I had many opportunities to disappoint my elders.
“If you’re so smart, why can’t you___________?”
Finish your homework
Pay attention in class
Apply yourself to your studies
Keep your desk and locker organized
Be like the other smart kids who do what they’re supposed, when they’re supposed to, and how they’re supposed to
Stop losing report cards, Walkmen, watches, shoes, library books, lunch money, Christmas checks and gift certificates from Grandma—literally anything that you own
Follow the football game that you, theoretically, could be called into at any point
Control your emotions
To which I replied with a shrug (my favorite gesture), “I dunno.” And the fact is, I don’t know. It was a mystery to me as well, and I was always so frustrated that my interrogators would not believe that I really didn’t know why I couldn’t get my act together. There is nothing in the world that I like less than negative attention. Especially from people that have any kind of power or authority over me. The idea that I would screw up on purpose, and that I was holding out on giving a better answer than “I don’t know” was completely ridiculous to me. It still is.
So, if I’m so smart, why am ain’t I rich? And what am I going to do about it? This challenge is the one that keeps me up at night. I’ve reached a point in my life where I am all but unemployable. My body is way too out of shape to do manual labor—including retail and restaurant work any longer. Standing for longer that 45 minutes is sheer agony, and the injuries that years of working these kinds of jobs have all joined forces to make me a broken down man at 46 years of age. I lack the formal education for many jobs that I feel might be a good fit for me. This is not me looking for pity. This is just me sharing why I need a change in the way I approach work.
I have also reached a point where I cannot feign caring about other people’s businesses succeeding when I am paid so poorly. Sorry Keith, I’m not really interested in your profit/loss margin or sell-through figures right now. I’m trying to figure out if I want my meds or food this week. Having never been paid a living wage in my entire life—even at jobs where I worked 60 to 70 hours a week and still had to work a part-time job, I ain’t exactly in love with capitalism, and I’m getting too ornery in my middle age to pretend that I am. Sorry, America. I’m burning my boats. I have to succeed on my own wits, scrambled as they may be.
They say that patriotism is the last refuge for the scoundrel, and I believe that entrepreneurism is the last refuge for me, the rapidly aging ne’er do well. If I don’t like how other people run their businesses (and I don’t 😉)—what can I do?
What kind of business can I, a man with almost no assets, run? What on earth is there that I do well enough to get paid for, so that I can contribute my full share to my family and stop depending on my wife? What service or product can I market that others will find value in? I will tell you the god’s honest truth. I dunno. But I’m going to make a plan to figure that out:
I will read the $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau, and apply it to me and see if I gain any insights into creating a successful business.*
I will talk to trusted friends who are business owners and see if they are willing to hear some of my pitches for potential businesses and if they have any guidance
I will take no more than a month to research and refine my business, and then
I am jumping in with both feet and taking a risk at failure
This project is a melodramatic and showy way of telling myself, “Gamble on yourself. Take a chance. Give yourself a chance to be surprised by life when you devote yourself to risking failure. When you put yourself out there. Go for something outrageously ambitious and work hard to achieve it!”
People love a striver. They want to help people who aim for greatness. People who are not afraid of daring greatly, as Brené Brown puts it. People love charismatic slackers as well—I am living proof of that, but I think that there are more Jeremys for me to discover. I need only be courageous and not be afraid of being seen.
“Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen.”
from Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brené Brown
*In general I am trying not to read anything that does not directly contribute to a new skills or goal, as I believe that they are a stalling mechanism, for me at least. Books of guitar chords or a book on learning how to program Python are necessary to my goals and therefore acceptable. But I cannot read yet another book on how to write the perfect screenplay or read a book on the history of bicycling and pretend that they will help me succeed in my goals.