If you are really interested, Gentle Reader, in not getting rich, then I advise you to live exactly the way I do. Hello?...Still there? Let me repeat myself: live exactly the way I have lived and you will never be rich. Here's how it didn't happen for me:
I began inauspiciously enough, the son of an auto mechanic for a father and a farmer's daughter for a mother. They were upwardly mobile and worked hard to buy a spanking new (well, three years old) three bedroom split-level house with three bedrooms and a half-basement. One bedroom each for my brother and me and one for my parents. At fourteen, while Mom and Dad were negotiating a bitter divorce, and after experimenting with drugs and learning about alternative lifestyles I became a teenage Jesus Freak. When I received the gift of the Holy Spirit I knew my life would never be the same. I barely struggled my way through high school and when I finished grade twelve I was one credit short of graduation. I had already lived briefly at my father's (he kicked me out after just over four months) and when I went to live with my mother and her then-boyfriend (a violent alcoholic with a criminal record) I really had to give up on any hope of getting a post-secondary education, at least for the next four years.
Unable to stay with either of my parents I celebrated my first weeks out of high school by moving to Vancouver on my own and staying in a ramshackle house with some very challenged adults (at eighteen, I was by far the youngest). I found a minimum wage job in a factory and got my own modest apartment. I quit my job four months later and went on unemployment insurance. I did not make a huge effort to find employment though I did manage to work casually in different situations. I moved to Toronto for six months where I worked at various low wage jobs then returned to Vancouver for more of the same. By the following year I had found stable employment and had saved money for college tuition. With help from my father and a modest Canada Student Loan I eked out a very modest subsistence while not doing terribly well at my studies.
At twenty-two I moved into a Christian community for nine months where I got majorly screwed around and was kicked out because the leader had a grudge against me (I didn't love him back). I had to find employment to survive so resuming my studies was out of the question. I was also stuck with a debt owed to Canada Student Loan and they had sicked a collection agency on me. I could only find low-paying jobs to survive. Then I ended up as a home-care worker with on the job training and stayed more or less in that position for many years. I tried to resume post-secondary studies part time but didn't have the emotional energy to continued given the pressures of my fulltime job.
These were some of my logistical obstacles to becoming a millionaire. Stay tuned, Gentle Reader, for part two tomorrow.
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