Introduction

There are few pieces of writing that I connect with as much as poet and novelist, Charles Bukowski’s letter to his publisher from 1986. The message behind this letter resonates with me tremendously because I've lived his words in my twenty-three years of attempting to write full time. The words in this letter are important to us all, despite our backgrounds.

Because the wisdom of Bukowski’s words pair so well with the topic that I’ve written about I’m going to intersperse the whole letter throughout my post in italics. This will make for a longer than usual read but the contents of this letter could very well change your perspective on a few things…they definitely did for me and become more poignant every day of my life.

A little background -- in 1969, publisher John Martin offered to pay Charles Bukowski $100 each and every month for the rest of his life, on one condition: that he quit his job at the post office and become a writer. Forty-nine year old Bukowski did quit his job, and in 1971 his first novel, Post Office, was published by Martin's Black Sparrow Press. Fifteen years later, Bukowski wrote the following letter to Martin and spoke of his joy at having escaped full time employment. (Bukowski's letter is continued in italics/my article in regular text.)

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8-12-86 Hello John: Thanks for the good letter. I don't think it hurts, sometimes, to remember where you came from. You know the places where I came from. Even the people who try to write about that or make films about it, they don't get it right. They call it "9 to 5." It's never 9 to 5, there's no free lunch break at those places, in fact, at many of them in order to keep your job you don't take lunch. Then there's OVERTIME and the books never seem to get the overtime right and if you complain about that, there's another sucker to take your place. You know my old saying, "Slavery was never abolished, it was only extended to include all the colors."

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To a large degree, I believe, we attract certain conditions into our lives based on the nature and the quality of the thoughts that loop through our noggins. I’ve seen enough proof of this in my own life and have experimented with the concept enough to make me a firm believer. Most often we receive what we are willing to accept and settle for in life.

Having grown up in the inner city in the 1970’s there was a certain mentality that was entrenched amongst most of its residents, my family included. This mentality was born out of generations of struggle and was unwittingly passed on to each new generation like some genetic anomaly. This set of beliefs I refer to as the Poverty Mindset and included concepts like:

• just be thankful there’s enough money to pay the bills;
• change is scary;
• be quiet, don't draw attention to yourself;
• life is hard;
• a life of constant sacrifice is admirable;
• work hard and do what you’re told;
• don’t question authority figures;
• find a good company to work for and stay there until you retire; and
• wealthy people are somehow better and/or different from us.

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And what hurts is the steadily diminishing humanity of those fighting to hold jobs they don't want but fear the alternative worse. People simply empty out. They are bodies with fearful and obedient minds. The color leaves the eye. The voice becomes ugly. And the body. The hair. The fingernails. The shoes. Everything does. As a young man I could not believe that people could give their lives over to those conditions. As an old man, I still can't believe it. What do they do it for? Sex? TV? An automobile on monthly payments? Or children? Children who are just going to do the same things that they did? Early on, when I was quite young and going from job to job I was foolish enough to sometimes speak to my fellow workers: "Hey, the boss can come in here at any moment and lay all of us off, just like that, don't you realize that?" They would just look at me. I was posing something that they didn't want to enter their minds. Now in industry, there are vast layoffs (steel mills dead, technical changes in other factors of the work place). They are layed off by the hundreds of thousands and their faces are stunned: "I put in 35 years..." "It ain't right..." "I don't know what to do..."

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My parents did the very best they could do, I believe that. They provided my brother and I with the bedrock that we could build successful lives on. My mother and father both came from very modest backgrounds and this was the only reality they knew. This constant, “struggling to make the ends meet” mentality was a very stressful way to live. Living with this mindset leaves you unprepared to take the calculated risks necessary to get ahead in life.

I remember when I was in the seventh grade my English teacher, Mr. Morgan, took a few of his honor students out for breakfast. I had literally never eaten in a restaurant where a server took your order. The situation seemed so foreign I was beside myself and wasn’t quite sure what to do or how to behave. The restaurant seemed “too fancy” and I felt like I didn’t belong. I was incredibly uncomfortable the entire time. I didn't like this feeling and never wanted to experience it again.

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They never pay the slaves enough so they can get free, just enough so they can stay alive and come back to work. I could see all this. Why couldn't they? I figured the park bench was just as good or being a barfly was just as good. Why not get there first before they put me there? Why wait? I just wrote in disgust against it all, it was a relief to get the shit out of my system. And now that I'm here, a so-called professional writer, after giving the first 50 years away, I've found out that there are other disgusts beyond the system. I remember once, working as a packer in this lighting fixture company, one of the packers suddenly said: "I'll never be free!" One of the bosses was walking by (his name was Morrie) and he let out this delicious cackle of a laugh, enjoying the fact that this fellow was trapped for life. So, the luck I finally had in getting out of those places, no matter how long it took, has given me a kind of joy, the jolly joy of the miracle. I now write from an old mind and an old body, long beyond the time when most men would ever think of continuing such a thing, but since I started so late I owe it to myself to continue, and when the words begin to falter and I must be helped up stairways and I can no longer tell a bluebird from a paperclip, I still feel that something in me is going to remember (no matter how far I'm gone) how I've come through the murder and the mess and the moil, to at least a generous way to die. To not to have entirely wasted one's life seems to be a worthy accomplishment, if only for myself. yr boy, Hank

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My brother and I continued to live with this poverty mindset until we made our way out into the world. My quantum leap began after I took my first corporate job in my twenties. Suddenly, I was surrounded by Ivy League college grads. It’s always difficult to generalize but the thing I noticed was the common denominator among almost the whole group was a quiet confidence as well as a clear expectation that they were going to succeed in life. Failure wasn't in their vocabulary.

At first I didn't like them. I thought their confidence was born of feelings of entitlement or arrogance. In most cases I learned it was neither. What was their secret? I came to understand these people realized the value of their skills and contributions. These people realized their true self worth.

I’ve learned a lot from my time in corporate America (not all of it good). Most importantly I've learned that confidence born of truly knowing yourself and what you bring to the table is more important than money, pedigree or almost anything other advantage in the world. I wanted that confidence for myself, more than anything else, and I set out on a long journey to find it.

As I spent more time with these people who subscribed to the Abundance Mindset I realized a few things:

• financial freedom and abundance is within reach;
• wealthy families have as many problems as poor or middle class ones;
• invest, make your money work for you;
• there’s opportunity in change and it shouldn’t be feared;
• we are worthy of abundance;
• life is short, enjoy it (with balance) and have fun;
• it’s okay to treat yourself in celebration of success;
• it’s important to not to just work hard but you must work smart;
• don’t be anyone’s doormat;
• no one is this world is better than you. They may have had a head start but they’re not better.
• life shouldn’t feel like a constant struggle; and
• almost all of our perceived limits are self-imposed ones.

How Did I Overcome Poverty Mindset?

It took me a long time and a lot of self-discovery to get to where I am today. Surrounding myself with people who lived with an Abundance Mindset helped. Meditation was equally as helpful. It took decades to learn to differentiate between spending frivolously and investing in my future. For example, the old me would never spend a thousand dollars on a computer but would have bought the cheapest laptop he could find. The new me realizes that this computer will make me many more thousands of dollars, and won’t need to be upgraded in two years so it’s a better investment. When you begin to view purchases as investments, it drastically shifts your perspective. When I switched from the Poverty Mindset to the Abundance Mindset my entire life changed for the better.

All of us, especially in this Gig Economy, are our own unique personal brand. It’s imperative to know your worth and to realize the exact value of what you add to your company, your customers, and the world. Without a knowledge of and belief in your true worth it’s awfully easy to be deceived by those who’re looking to take advantage of you. Not realizing your self-worth leads to constant struggle and being locked into the generational cycle of the Poverty Mentality.

Therefore, it’s crucial to always be able to accurately answer the following question, “What exactly do I bring to the table?” because if you don’t know the answer, you’ll come up short every single time. Never let anyone or anything empty you out.

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I am an American novelist, poet, traveler, and blockchain enthusiast. Your upvotes, comments, and resteems are always appreciated!

Eric Vance Walton - Media

www.ericvancewalton.net
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