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Idiom: Pull yourself up by the bootstraps
Students enjoy hearing about the lives of their English teachers.
It provides more cultural and personal insight.
I have always been independent.
Here’s how I learned to pull myself up by the bootstraps.
Before that, though, to pull yourself up by the bootstraps means to improve your circumstances through your efforts instead of depending on others for help.
When I was 18, my father told me I was on my own.
He said he had four daughters, and from then on, he couldn’t help me financially.
As far as he was concerned, as long as I lived in his house, he could feed me, but he would never give me any money.
He was true to his word.
I had to pull myself up by the bootstraps if I wanted to accomplish anything in life.
The funny thing is, I never felt hard done by or angry.
I figured that’s just the way it is.
When I was 20, I left home for Vancouver, British Columbia.
Even though it was still Canada, it was like a different country.
The accent and culture were foreign to me.
After disembarking from the airplane, I became overwhelmed, sat down and cried.
I am not ashamed of that.
It was a significant turning point in my outlook on life.
After a few moments, I realized everything was up to me.
If I wanted to accomplish something, the only one I could rely on 100% was me.
Sitting on that bench in Vancouver airport, I pulled myself up by the bootstraps.
First, I found a place to stay, got a job and made a few friends.
Then, I met a girl.
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Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
This post is understandable by someone with at least a 7th-grade education (age 12).
On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 80.
The higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100, the easier the passage is to read.