I've been getting some pictures sent to me lately, from people I went to
high school or college with, of their grown children at their
engagement parties or their graduations. Now most of these people I
haven't heard from in years and probably aren't really friends but are more like acquaintances, acquaintances
that have always been very jealous and competitive with me through the
years, for whatever reason. I'm sure it's a thinly veiled complement if they're bothering to tell me about their accomplishments at this late date in life.
The thing is when I graduated, a number of my classmates had a lot of family support and received a good bit of help starting out. I know of more than a few that received huge chunks of cash to help them get off to a good start. One received $50,000 and a little house to boot. This was a lot of money back in the mid 1980's. Well of course they're going to be successful at something with that kind of start. Most still needed a couple of decades before they had any degree of "success". My parents on the other hand fought me every inch of the way, for whatever reason, but they were quite happy when I was still fairly broke ten years after graduation.
The classmates that were successful right off and got into the right occupations for their particular skills, curiously they never bothered to send me pictures of their kids or mansions or pools or any of that. They were too busy making money.
Regardless, if you haven't heard from someone in several years and suddenly out of the blue you get a picture of them accomplishing something big, most likely they're still trying to impress you after all these years, which is a complement, even if it doesn't feel like it.
