When I was growing up, it was still possible—and often expected—that a young man would finish high school and get a factory job with one of the automotive companies in the area. Grandpa had worked there, Dad still did, and Junior would carry on the family tradition.
Success was having a decent wage, benefits, and a pension. It was expected that there were certain trade-offs, such as losing the occasional finger to a punch press or periodically taken from work to the hospital for stitches. The work was mind-numbingly repetitious, but that was just part and parcel of the process. It was okay, though, until manufacturing moved overseas or was automated.
For other people, the self-imposed standard is higher. People study music or art, practice their chosen mode of expression throwing themselves into it, heart and soul. Imagine, after years of study and dedication:
- The musician finds that the culmination of his talent and effort provides music for telephone callers who are placed on hold.
- The artist, skilled in a variety of visual techniques, from oil painting to sculpting, ends up producing billboard illustrations.
- The young model who has posed for a variety of photographs, finds that one of them shows her face on the internet with the captions “All cheaters have one thing in common.”
- The actor, after years of stage plays in high school, college, and off-off-Broadway finally makes it as a movie only to find that most of his time is spent repeat the same lame line over and over to allow for different camera angles, the reaction of other actors, etc.
I’m grateful for what life has given me, even though (especially?) I’m not in the spotlight.
sfnowak 
Good stuff, Steve. Hope you’re having a great Father’s Day!
Happy Father’s Day, Steve–and to your many readers who are dads. I was about 3 or 4 when my dad said, “Did you know when YOU WERE BORN is when I became a father?” Heck, I went around all happy, thinking “I did that?”
Months later it was my older brother who brought me down from upon my high and burst my bubble of fancy. I was so disappointed.
I believe fathers “all-ways” do more than they think and share, and are always in the spotlight irrespective of what they remember or believe. YOU, Steve, for example. I wonder if your readers here would believe you authored one of the very first computer handbooks, were formerly a hospital administrator, and made the world of medical administration and radiology leaders throughout the country LOL (literally laugh out loud) for some 25 years or so, with your creation of fictitious “Pandemonium” General Hospital and the hilarious exploits of a mad, run-amok department manager therein.
Oh, Steve, you were in the spotlight all right. On many occasions more than a few hospital and department directors actually believed that YOU were writing about them personally and specifically.
You speak of the musician, actor, model and artist. You are all of them plus high consideration for others THINKER…just in case you and your readers didn’t know, yet.