Success
Feb 12th 2019, 12:48 pm
#31
Joined: Aug 2003
Location: East Seaxe
Posts: 72,552
Re: Success
I don't spend much time worrying about what my friends from school and uni did with their lives, but I don't know of any who did spectacularly well, though one or two get quoted in niche media as experts in their field. One friend went to Oxford, but is now a factory H&S officer, so an unremarkable career, another did poorly at GCSE, pretty much failed his A Level's (grades E, O, & F!!!), but ended up with a PhD from Cambridge, and is now a research scientist with several niche business interests as well as his continuing academic career; he doesn't appear to be wealthy though, and gets taxed through the nose in the country where he chose to make his home. Another school friend is a barrister, but not a high-flyer, apparently doing a lot of his work on legal aid, defending petty crooks.
Against that backdrop, I think I am doing OK, especially compared to a friend who died a few months after he was found to have a brain tumour, the best man at my wedding who died unexpectedly a few years later at home from an undiagnosed brain aneurysm, and a friend from uni who was reportedly a "millionaire businessman" when he was allegedly murdered by being hit by a car, allegedly after being set up by his wife, who was apparently his sole heir!
The last heard was that his estate was eventually determined to be worth a lot less than the seven figures previously claimed. 
Against that backdrop, I think I am doing OK, especially compared to a friend who died a few months after he was found to have a brain tumour, the best man at my wedding who died unexpectedly a few years later at home from an undiagnosed brain aneurysm, and a friend from uni who was reportedly a "millionaire businessman" when he was allegedly murdered by being hit by a car, allegedly after being set up by his wife, who was apparently his sole heir!
The last heard was that his estate was eventually determined to be worth a lot less than the seven figures previously claimed. 
Feb 15th 2019, 11:38 pm
#33
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Joined: Oct 2003
Posts: 38,613
Re: Success
Same where we live in New Zealand. Pay for a tag on a wheely bin for one's rubbish to be carted away or buy official rubbish bags. Less household rubbish , the less one pays. Recycling is free. It is NZD$10 for 4 rubbish bags. We use one a week .
Feb 16th 2019, 12:15 am
#34
Joined: Dec 2001
Location: Dixie, ex UK
Posts: 52,448
Re: Success
We have a recycling bin of the same size and pretty much fill it every two weeks with plastic, glass, and paper/cardboard. The metal we sell to a scrap yard.
Oversize things like furniture we can haul to the dump ourselves and pay a fee based on weight over the weighbridge, or pay a per-item fee for special collection. . ... I had two large recliner-sofas and a matching reclining upholstered chair to get rid of, which I considered taking to the dump, but in the end unscrewed the recliner mechanisms (five of them) and bracing springs to sell for scrap, and tore the rest of them apart and I am now filling the wheelie bin each week with upholstery and frame pieces.
Last edited by Pulaski; Feb 16th 2019 at 12:57 am.
Feb 16th 2019, 9:16 pm
#35
Lost in BE Cyberspace
Joined: Nov 2007
Location: Bay Area, CA
Posts: 13,111
Re: Success
I grew up in a grim post-industrial town in the north-west of England in the 60s and 70s, attending a mediocre comprehensive school. My mum, as the sole breadwinner, barely made enough to put food on the table - working two part-time crap jobs in the evening on top of her pretty basic day-job (my dad left when I was 10 and he never contributed). Not many people talked about 'careers', and there was little interest in university at the school. In the end, just a few of my 'contemporaries' at that school went to university, and almost none of them graduated. Most found mundane jobs locally, if at all. I was lucky in that I had a knack for school, and also had a mum who wanted me to have opportunities she never had. So I managed to get a degree in what turned out to be the fastest growing field around (computers - not that I knew that at the time, I was just good at maths and physics so it was an easy option!) After just a couple of years working in London, I landed a job in Silicon Valley and that's where I've been ever since - always had good jobs.
So if I want to 'feel good' about my personal achievements, I can easily look back at my contemporaries from that period and 'congratulate myself'. BUT - perhaps that's not human nature! Having moved to London, and then to San Francisco, I found myself surrounded by many successful people, and by comparison to those people, I haven't done nearly as well. So I guess it all comes down to ... who do you want to compare yourself to!
So if I want to 'feel good' about my personal achievements, I can easily look back at my contemporaries from that period and 'congratulate myself'. BUT - perhaps that's not human nature! Having moved to London, and then to San Francisco, I found myself surrounded by many successful people, and by comparison to those people, I haven't done nearly as well. So I guess it all comes down to ... who do you want to compare yourself to!
