On those occasions when I write about things such as facing life's realities or my frothing dislike of Donald Trump, I get comments from a few angry people who assume -- I guess based on the short bio at the top of my columns -- that I've got it made, and how dare I think that I have the right to comment on how life might be for people who are struggling.
Not long ago, one reader wrote about me after reading a column of mine, "(I) have the sneaking suspicion that, given his bio (emphasis added), he probably has all the things in his life he is telling us we'll never have and to just suck up and move on."
I was taken aback. I know how much I have struggled, but of course, the readers don't. They have no reason to know. Or care.
And I understand that to some, words in my bio like "Yale" touch a nerve and generate a knee jerk reaction of, well of course, someone with those sorts of credentials must have it made.
But the resume never tells the whole story. It rarely tells more than a sliver of the story, and that sliver is intended to make us look fabulous, bursting with accomplishments, devoid of failures and blemishes.
Thirty years ago, I thought I was going to rule the world, or at least be in the small cohort of people who did. I had lots of degrees from schools revered by many, but reviled by many as well. The path looked pretty rosy.
Life then intruded. It usually does. The path got exceedingly thorny, and it became clear that if I could barely control my own tiny corner of the world, I was unlikely to rule anything.
So beware the lure of the resume. Not everyone who goes to "elite" schools is a millionaire. Or even an elitist. When I attend one of my reunions, I try to avoid asking my classmates questions about how they are doing economically because I don't want to be asked those questions in return (one nice thing about getting older is that reunion questions now focus more on joint replacements and grandchildren than financial successes).
Not everyone who lives in a nice town lives in a mansion, or belongs to the country club or drives a nice car. (When I go to my Sunday morning touch football games, I am painfully aware that my scratched 11-year-old Prius, parked next to my teammates BMWs, is tangible evidence of how far from "ruling the world" I have strayed.)
I shouldn't be surprised when people make wildly inaccurate assumptions about others based on almost no information, but I still am surprised. Making snap judgments based on little information takes all that messy effort and work out of actually learning about people.
My entire life, I have loved hearing people's life stories. I love interviewing people, and have found that almost everyone, by the time they are 40 or 50 or 60, have a patchwork of joys, traumas, setbacks, triumphs and diversions from the paths they expected to take.
Their stories almost always differ from, and are more enlightening than, their resumes.
I also know that most people don't enjoy hearing life stories as much as I do. Most people prefer to talk about themselves, or tear down others about whom they know very little.
So when the nasty personal comments come after I write about what a dangerous egomaniac Trump is, I shouldn't be surprised (though I still am amazed by how many of Trump's supporters don't seem to mind that their guy can't help himself from boasting often about his Ivy League education and how smart he is).
I want to tell my nasty comment writers about the struggles I have navigated post-Yale, how my resume has not insulated me from financial tsunamis, and how sadly amusing I find it when people who don't know me assume I "have it made."
A resume a micro story, usually the most positive version of that story that its author can dream up, often stretching the definition of truth. But it never tells the whole story. And the whole story is usually worth hearing.
Earlier on Huff/Post50:
