I never wanted to go to college, I never thought I was smart enough. My father had other plans for me. He told me that he was leaving. He wanted me to take over the family business which was a bar. I mean, after all, my senior year in high school, I was taking classes like Chinese literature and woodworking. I don’t think I took a college level class in high school, so how would a college accept me? I made a deal with my father: I would apply to three universities and if any of them accepted me, I would go. I applied to a college, a state school, and a school in the remote woods of Virginia. They all accepted me. I went to state school.
I think I mentioned this, but I’ll say it again my first semester in college I had a 1.0 cumulative GPA. That’s a D. I got a letter from the university telling me to get in shape or they were going to ask me to leave. I showed my father the letter and said, “Look, I told you I couldn’t do it.” He looked at me and said, “You better do it because I’m selling the bar.”
I ended up graduating from college with a lot of help from the professors. My cumulative average: 2.9. If you do the math, you’ll find that it’s all pure A.
What motivated me, you might ask? FEAR with a capital F. I had to do it. There was no safety net. Yes, I was afraid, afraid and many other things, but you know what… I did it.
I once worked with a great psychiatrist and he made the most incredible statement you can imagine. He said to me, “Jim, before a child can really be disciplined, you have to be afraid.”
It is not fear of physical punishment but fear of disappointing someone, or even fear of a strong reaction. I think the word that has been lost today is respect. Normally I will respect what I fear. Do children today have a healthy fear of adults? Do they respect adults or better yet among themselves? children of today
they believe they can say and do what they want, when they want. It’s time to start instilling healthy fear back into our children and shutting them down from the idea that they might let someone down. I’m really sick of the “I don’t care” attitude. If it weren’t for fear, I wouldn’t be writing this essay right now.
