HOW TO KNOW YOUR PLACE

Do You Know Your Place? Need To Learn?

Look back on your earliest memories.

Were you surrounded by everything you’d ever want?

If you go back far enough, you don’t know what you want. You just remember stuff.

Having siblings means sharing your stuff.

Now think back on how you and your siblings shared things.

Did you share? Or did you take things and punish anyone who wanted to play with your stuff?

If you shared with others, good for you. If you didn’t share, were you punished?

That’s what older siblings and parents do with non-sharing little jerks.

Part of learning to know your place is learning what’s what.

Try and remember your first day, or first year, in school.

Could you sit still in class? Baby boomers had the classrooms with little bathrooms inside the room.

Did you ask for permission to use the potty, or just jump up and run for it?

Permission is a big deal. It was then, it is now. If you know your place you know how to ask for permission.

Teachers and parents help kids know their place. It comes in handy later in life.

Sixth grade was the last year of grade school.

As top of the heap, did you push younger kids down and say you didn’t. It was a long time ago if you did.

Bullies change. Some bullies change. If they don’t change they get pounded by bigger kids. Then they turn into bitter bullies who grovel around until they see a bully opportunity.

Sixth grade was a turning point. That’s when you saw kids act out, steal things, lie, and cheat.

It was a time when kids separated the good from the bad. Kids wanted to know their place. You could beat up a bully and not be a bully, but it was complicated.

Ninth grade was the last year of junior high.

If you were going to be the king of the class, this was the time.

Early bloomers were bigger and stronger, but wouldn’t get much bigger or stronger.

The stars of ninth grade didn’t always shine brighter during high school.

If you were one of the stars, did you play sports? You could run faster and hit harder. If you played football in ninth grade you did well. If not, was there a problem?

Know your place on a football field and it lasts a lifetime.

You’ve heard of the blindside? If you’ve ever been blindsided by one of those early developed players, you remember.

Senior year in high school is a life changer.

You’re going to college? You’re going to get a job? You’re going to get drafted if you don’t go to college?

No, the draft was over in 1973, so it was college or work.

For many senior year was a dream. You could be anybody, if not go anywhere.

By the time seventeen or eighteen rolls around you’ve learned to know your place, or at least fake it well enough to fool anyone that matters.

College was shocking for the best of students. Whether time management or study skills, you had freedom to fail.

Failure meant getting a job, so learning was important.

If if you don’t flunk out, things change. So you join the Army for sophomore year and junior year and come back when everyone else your age is a college senior.

The Army is big on know your place lessons.

That’s when you learn you’re worse off than an ingrown hair surrounding an infected boil near the rectum of hand wiping sewer rat from whatever state you came from.

Very colorful language. Drill Sergeants go to school to learn the proper cadence.

They call you ‘trainee’ instead of your name, the same name your loving parents gave you, the name your teachers and siblings called out.

Now it’s, “Trainee, am I supposed to believe you are so ignorant that the pile of human waste that produced you didn’t teach you anything useful?”

You listen and agree. If you speak up, you fall into the trap. There’s only wrong answers. Wait for permission to speak.

After all the reflection, take one last look in the mirror.

Baby boomers, GenX, and millennials all need a moment to ask themselves, “Do I know my place?”

From seventy year olds to eighteen year olds, are you comfortable knowing your place? More important, are you good with the lessons learned from your parents, teachers, mentors?

If the answer is yes then you probably understand the idea of seniority, the benefit of time in rank, and the importance of on the job experience.

If these three concepts don’t resonate with you, you might be a problem.

You may not be able to respect others. You may not be able to see both sides of a problem. You might be someone who peaked at fourteen, but remember how great it felt to rule the roost.

You might vote for candidates who speak to your inner-fourteen year old, that little bitch who went from bully to bullied and never got over it.

If you know your place, you got over it, and BoomerPdx thanks you for the effort.