Learning The Hard Way; Learning The Value Of Work Poem by Ian (John) McCleary (Son of the Cleric)

My parents had less expectations of me during my time in high school, I was allowed not to work, that was only so I could focus on my schoolwork. And throughout my time in college, they again said as long as I focused on my schoolwork that I didn't have to get a job. I eventually would graduate thinking my degree would get me a job alone in the field I wanted to be in. But that was so mistaken of me to take the job process so lightly.
Forgetting all about the hard work it takes to be whatever is I majored in.
I had my own ideas, but I didn't really know what I wanted to do as far as getting a career. I just had some vague ideas of what I wanted to do with my life, and that was it.
But things eventually changed the longer I was out of school Without some form of employment to earn money by, my parents saw that i was putting off my future, and made sure I was employed doing something. I was really late to learning responsibility
I idealized the lives of the musicians, poets, artists that I liked, thinking I would be like them, following in their example.
But I started to learn responsibility when I met my wife and when we started living in an apartment together. When I moved out of my parents house, I saw how much of a problem my habits could be. With questions like, Why are the dishes in the sink? Where's dinner? These started to help me to see that I wasn't living by myself, that I was sharing my life with another person. And when I become lazy like this, I am not thinking of my marriage. I am thinking of myself.
If I wanted to live alone I could have, but that wasn't what I chose to do or decided on, and besides I wasn't going to make a life for myself anyway on my own.
My younger brother still lives with my parents, they weren't as forceful on the issue of him getting a job as they were with me He has been unemployed for a long time, I wish his life were better for him and he could live in a place of his own, maybe find a girlfriend if he wants to.
It used to make me angry that my parents treated me differently than they did my brother about work. But I don't think about it now, they instead helped me to learn the true road to independence by becoming responsible through hard work.