This was an actual questionnaire received by Lee in 1978. He had only been out of college 7 years. I adjusted the salary amounts to what they would be today.
In a recent effort to chart the social and economic progress of the class of 1971, my college alumni magazine sent out a questionnaire which includes the following dilly:
Your current annual income is:
A more than $15,000.00 ($74,000.00)
B more than $25,000.00 ($124,000.00)
C more than $50,000.00 ($248,000.00)
D up to + $75000.00 ($372,000.00)
The questionnaire also wanted to find out whether I had been elected or appointed to any public office, how much professional or literary material had been published under my name and whether any public buildings, foundations, or geographical features had been named for me.
When I finished laughing, I began to feel disappointed in myself for being unable to answer any of the questions. Was I a failure? Was I one of those rare members of my graduating class who hadn’t set the world on fire? (After all, it’s 1978 already; they gave me seven years).
The memory of my last high school reunion, however, brought me back on an even keel.
At a high school reunion everyone you meet is doing just fine. You don’t hear anybody saying, “After several years of unemployment, I’m stuck in a dead end job with no future. I can’t make my mortgage payments, the finance company is hounding me about my car, and my spouse hates my guts. My kids are jerks. I spend most of my time watching TV and I’ve forgotten virtually everything I learned in school.”
Instead it comes out like this: “I’ve got a steady job with a good company, my house is lovely, and I drive a new car. I have a comfortable marriage and I’m proud of my kids. I stay pretty active.”
I filled out my questionnaire to say I was a millionaire, had just been elected to the State Senate, and was happy to report that Mt. McKinley would appear as Mt. Duigon in the next issue of National Geographic.
But I never mailed the blooming thing. Why bother to make up whoppers if thousands of other respondents are doing the same?
But they had me going for a second, and I still resent it. They phrased the questionnaire to make it look like fame and fortune were the natural outcome of four years’ attendance at their silly college. For a moment they made me ashamed because I didn’t measure up.
I imagine I would be very unhappy if I shifted gears on my life and tried to meet the alumni magazine’s criteria for success.
Not that these criteria are at all uncommon–far from it. When we ask somebody what he’s worth, we expect the answer in dollars and cents. When we wish we were someone else–and that’s another can of worms–it’s always someone rich and famous.
You can’t blame people for feeling that way. If we’re told something often enough, we eventually believe it, no matter how ridiculous it may be. After spending four years telling me how to strive for knowledge, growth and self-respect, college turned around and asked about my finances.
The alumni association, of course, is not the same thing as the liberal arts faculty. But it’s still the end product of all that teaching, all that sermonizing, and all that two-faced quackery. By their fruits you shall know them.
There’s something wrong with an educational process whose end product is shabby materialism. Other factors play major roles, but the educational system is our fault. We elect the school boards, we pay the taxes and the tuition, and we sit around like concrete lawn ornaments while the system continues to deteriorate.
If people are unhappy, it’s mostly because they judge themselves by false standards. If you measure gold by it’s ability to float in water, you won’t consider it a very valuable commodity.
I wish I hadn’t thrown that questionnaire away. I should have returned it with “None of the above” scrawled across the sheet with a note attached to describe my real progress:
Gentlemen, I edited the paper for the first time last week. My pet lizards laid eggs. I taught my wife how to play my favorite wargame. For supper, we had fish we caught ourselves. I finally figured out why Edgar Rice Burroughs was a better fantasy writer than Robert E. Howard. I could go on, but I don’t like to brag.
Lee Duigon
The Inquisitor
1978
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