The Preppy 12 Step

The Preppy 12 Step….I do believe that I hear the strain of a country song or at the very least a new dance step.

This post is about unintended consequences.  If I am to know what I expect… from my family, friends, co-workers, my elected officials, and society, I, first must know what I believe is expected of me. (As I wrote that, I felt that I needed to give us all a red bouncing ball to follow.)  Now I can only speak from my own experience in this matter; as a WWASP then as I Preppy. OK.. ready for the Red bouncing ball ?

Many are the passions of the Preppy, But are they the same as the passions of the WASP ? I think  not. Sure, on some levels they are deceptively similar, my experience has been that;  they are very different at the core. (I have my waders on and I am about to step in it.)

As a WASP, I am about the substance of the thing…as a Preppy I am about the fluff.  I say this because,  All WASPs are Preppy at heart, but not all Preppies are WASPs. Yet, there are those that are Preppies but not WASPs. They do share the same value systems and have gone through the same rights of passage as us (or is it we) WASPs. Now if your experiencing a bit of confusion… your not alone.

For those of us in the WWASP (Wealthy WASP) category, we even differ, again, from our WASP cousins; in the respect that we have an extra burden of wealth.

I am still exploring Personal Responsibility and the theme of The Message vs The Medium.  It is very easy for me to look at the world outside of myself and declare with voracity that all of you are the ones that are screwed up.  No one that I know, including myself,  likes to take a good long hard look at themselves, their actions and choices that they ( I) have made and their unintended consequences. The single most important and influential choice in my life was not made by me, but for me, when my Founding Family Member established the Family Trust. This Patriarch,thought it best to let every other generation receive and the ones in between work, in the attempt to stave off the most common problem associated with unearned wealth, namely a sense of entitlement. It is my experience, that those of us that do receive, have an ever consuming sense of entitlement. Now, with this sense of entitlement, comes  an unintended consequence an overpowering feeling of total uselessness.

Having traveled around the world and seeing  the accomplishments of those that have gone before me, I realized that I will never measure up. and for many years I just languished in a mental state of hopelessness, self pity and uselessness with no sense of direction. The saddest thing, is that I watch most of us (WWASPs) follow the same path.  On the outside,we are the life of the party, on the inside we are just lost. We go through the motions  all the while in self delusion that we are happy. Some are truly happy, because they have a solid grounding  a sense of who they are and where they belong in this world, most of us do not . For me it took great hardship and time to start me on my journey.

In the next edition of The Preppy Chronicles, I will share a little more of my journey and what I believe, have been some of the most profound changes in my life.

As I have stated, from time to time, I will recommend some misic, books, movies… Today I would like to recommend a CD…Alison Krauss & Union Stations ‘ So Long So Wrong. Enjoy.

So, until next time I will leave you with…

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,

And What I assume You shall assume,

            For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

Song of Myself…..Whalt Whitman.

Always Bumby

The Preppy Chronicles Edition I vol. 5

Tags: Conscience, Honesty, Personal Responsibility, Preppy, Preppy and WASP Lifestyles, Preppy Chronicles, Princeton, Trust fund

This entry was posted on March 18, 2010 at 1:03 PM and is filed under All that's Preppy/WASP. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.