Different camps

[backbreaker]

let's talk about something non hypergamy related lol.

Okay, today we are watching the Olympics. group of us here, about 10 of us. I am a big Olympic fan and my wife won't let me work so it's not like i have anything else to do anyway.

so we are watching the us gymastic women's team, and man, those are some young girls. 14-16-18 years old. I don't think the avg person can possibly concieve how much sacirifce it goes into being that good that young. gym, weight lifting, diet, no dating, get up at 4am every fvcking day, school, gym, your life is the Olympics. they start grooming 8-9 year olds for the olympics 8 years from now.

so one of the girls there asks me, we are just shooting the ****, if some coach came up to you and told you that joe "(my son) he came into our gym today he did some workouts with us and i'm here to tell you that your son is the lebron james of gymnastics lol. he just has it, he needs some work and he is very raw but he has something you can't teach, i want you to move your family to new york and he will train with the Olympic training and if he develops in 8 years he will have a shot to go to the olympics. your son is going to work his ass off for 8 years. he's going to make sacrifices, **** i can't even guarantee you that he will make the team, but your son has a gift"

would I do it. honestly, we'd be packed before the coach would be done talking. no question in my mind you don't pass that up. it's not even about making the olympics to me it's about trying to reach a goal.

so 2 of the guys there are like well i couldn't do that to my child. i mean i don't want to take their childhood from them what if they fail?


and that right there, is the difference between an alpha male and a beta male.

to me, the way I tick, not trying is the biggest sin you commit. there is nothing worse in my book than someone who comes up with dreams and is too chicken to pure sue them. regardless of how unlikely they are, it's the journey not the end result.

i can't.. imagine denying my son, regardless of the personal sacrifices i had to make, the right or ability to do anything he sets his little mind to. that's what growing up is about. even if he fails, he will have a work ethic engrained in him that i don' even think i have. you can't teach that.


so i got to thinking.. so I take these risks, my son takes these risks, he fails or succeeds...

why exactly do the dudes who did not want to try, think they are entitled to all the perks that my son is entited to for busting his ass and trying? my son is 4 years old. say he works his ass off for 16 years and becomes an olpmyic medalist or **** even if he doesn't, but he is competing on the world stage and gets just poon throwed at him left and right. then you got this dude who sat there and watched him day in and day out work his ass off for over a decade turn into a crying ***** when women are passing him up for my son. to the victor goes the spoils. if you don't' play the game you can't get mad when the results don't' go in your favor.

that just ticks me off more than anything. I mean,t here is getting fvcked over and crying about that, but then there is just *****ing beucase you are a ***** and never put any effort into anything yet want results like you did. that guy pisses me off.

 

[The Duke]

It has little to do with being alpha or beta.

Have you ever heard of not putting all of your eggs in one basket?

And why would you take one coach's advice anyways?

Being successful in life is an alpha thing no doubt but you never put all your eggs in one basket incase the bottom drops out. Same reason you spin multiple plates!

 

[ebracer05]

to the victor goes the spoils. if you don't' play the game you can't get mad when the results don't' go in your favor.

Exactly. I understand what you mean here. This is a good post. Howiestern is taking things too literally; there is a built in assumption that the coach is a credible guy.

Look at Warren Buffet. How did he make his money? He did exactly what common sense would say you should not do - he put all his eggs in one basket.

Diversification of anything, from your money, resources, talents or anything else is safer, but it's less productive. If those Olympians had not put all their eggs in one basket, they would not be at the Olympics.

When you want to do something really great... I'm not talking about the upper echelon of what most people consider realistic for themselves... I'm talking about accomplishments that are in the upper echelon of achievement... it takes legitimate sacrifice and dedication. You can't partition your resources in the interest of safety if you want to be competitive in that group. You are either go all in or you're going to fail.

Most people don't live at that level and that's why it may not make sense to them. Most people are also not alpha.

 

[SoSuave666]

You have to take a couple things into account:

1.) Is your family financially stable enough to just pick up and move to NYC? Think of the costs incurred in any move, then multiply by the cost of living in NYC.

2.) Does your kid WANT to be a gymnast. I was waiting for you to say whether or not your kid actually wanted to be a gymnast, but never found it. Even if he does want to be one there is no guarantee that he will want to be one in hell, 2 months. You can't put faith in an 8 year old child.

3.) At 8 years old you are basically robbing your child of youthful experiences based on the .01% chance that things go perfectly and he becomes an Olympian. I am totally in support of letting a child follow his dreams, but at least when I was a kid my dreams were so fickle. I wanted to be a firefighter, then a saxophone player, then an artist, then a musician, then a basketball player, etc. A gymnast will never get to set his own goals because he is molded from such a young age to ONLY be a gymnast. It's basic nurture principles. He doesn't really have a choice on what to become because he is forced to do something prior to forming a valid evaluation of what's best for him. It's like putting your kids in all those beauty pageants and stuff at a young age. Sure maybe one will become Miss USA, but for the rest? They are going to be some messed up kids.

The problem with being a gymnast is you HAVE to start at a young age. And I get that. If my child wanted it bad enough, I'm sure I would help them along the way. You don't HAVE to move across the country to succeed, even though that Gaby girl did on team USA. I guess in this scenario you are assuming your child has 100% interest in only becoming a gymnast. If that were the case, I'd do what I could to help him, financially at least. But sitting down with an 8 year old kida and trying to gauge interest is kind of like sitting down with a woman and trying to get closure on a break up. How much can you really trust?

 

[backbreaker]

I was going to ask the same question. Why make a kid miserable.

The hypothetical should be, you want to be something but you are told by an "expert" that you'll never go far. What do you do - try or move on? That would be a more relevant question. The world is littered with success stories who were told not to quit their day job. People passed on the Beatles.

given the hypothetical that assumption was given. I would never push my son to do soemthing his heart is not into. I am talking about simply pushign a kid to do something he sees he wants. your son is watching hte olympics and he sees it and he wants to do that and the coach tells you hey... your son has it. do you try to protect him from failure or do you push him.


funny enough, i have a cousin, a year and 2 weeks older than me, my dad's sister's son. my father's side fo the family is pretty athletic, but it was clear from an extremely early age that my cousin had a gift, had a combination of size and athleticism that people just don't have. he was taller than his teacher in first grade. no one believes me when i say that but i know that for a fact beucause it was my first day of school ever and my mom followed me to school while i was ridign the bus and took ap icture of when we got off the bus. he was over 6 feet tall in the 4th grade and by the time he was in 9th grade he was 6'10.

his dad decided quite early that his son was going to be his meal ticket. even though he was pretty successful in his own right, owns a huge janitorial business, but his son got him access to people and events that he otherwise did not have access to.

Mike (my cousin) practiced day and night. he had to. like, literally, had to. his dad would make him practice the second heg ot home from school, 7 days a week. he built a full court in the back yard so he could practice.

and the practice paid off. mike was in essence a 6'10 small forward and could handle the ball better than i could and i was a pretty damn good point guard. he could shoot from anywhere, could post up, ran like a gazelle and had a high basketball IQ

by the time mike was a junior in high school and got on the AAU circuit his mail box was a whose who of college basketball recruiting. he eventualy signed and played with Arkansas... but something funny happened.

he really, his heart honestly never was in basketball. it really wasn't. he liked to chase girls. he wasn't stupid either and did very well in school and did not necessarily see his future playing pro ball. his sister is a lawyer out her in LA both of them are smart. it's like the second he got from under his dad's wing he couldn't wait to not practice. all mike wanted to do was chill and fvck coeds lol.

considering I had 2 cousins around my age, one had just graudated in pre law from arkansas (his sister) and he was playing on national TV every week, and i decided not to go to college to do what iwanted to do I heard it daily why could i not be like my cousin. but no one cared that he was miserable.

because he went so far the other way when he got to college, he finished school but didn't really do anything. ironi9cally enough he is playing pro ball overseas, and he hates every minute of it but tis' the only thing eh can do that can keep his (smoking hot) new wife happy financially.

 

[backbreaker]

You have to take a couple things into account:

1.) Is your family financially stable enough to just pick up and move to NYC? Think of the costs incurred in any move, then multiply by the cost of living in NYC.

2.) Does your kid WANT to be a gymnast. I was waiting for you to say whether or not your kid actually wanted to be a gymnast, but never found it. Even if he does want to be one there is no guarantee that he will want to be one in hell, 2 months. You can't put faith in an 8 year old child.

3.) At 8 years old you are basically robbing your child of youthful experiences based on the .01% chance that things go perfectly and he becomes an Olympian. I am totally in support of letting a child follow his dreams, but at least when I was a kid my dreams were so fickle. I wanted to be a firefighter, then a saxophone player, then an artist, then a musician, then a basketball player, etc. A gymnast will never get to set his own goals because he is molded from such a young age to ONLY be a gymnast. It's basic nurture principles. He doesn't really have a choice on what to become because he is forced to do something prior to forming a valid evaluation of what's best for him. It's like putting your kids in all those beauty pageants and stuff at a young age. Sure maybe one will become Miss USA, but for the rest? They are going to be some messed up kids.

The problem with being a gymnast is you HAVE to start at a young age. And I get that. If my child wanted it bad enough, I'm sure I would help them along the way. You don't HAVE to move across the country to succeed, even though that Gaby girl did on team USA. I guess in this scenario you are assuming your child has 100% interest in only becoming a gymnast. If that were the case, I'd do what I could to help him, financially at least. But sitting down with an 8 year old kida and trying to gauge interest is kind of like sitting down with a woman and trying to get closure on a break up. How much can you really trust?

I can honestly say, honestly, i knew in elementry school i wanted to be a professional handicapper. there are times i got off track and my mind swayed elsewhere but i always came back to that. everything i have ever done has always been with that in mind.

 

[zekko]

I suppose it depends on how much value you put on being an Olympian, or a gymnast for that matter. I mean it's mainly a pride thing. Unless you win a gold, capture the imagination of the country, and get some good endorsement deals, you're not really going to make money.