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Phrase: Sink or swim
Upon coming to Japan, the most surprising thing was how long parents support their children.
For me, it’s been sink or swim since I was 18.
Just before turning 19, I was working with my father up in northern Canada.
Sink or swim means you are not given any help to succeed in life.
You are on your own, and you must be self-reliant to succeed, or you fail.
While we were sitting in the pickup, eating lunch one day, he looked at me and said, “From now on, you sink or swim on your own. I can’t f***in carry you anymore. I have four girls to look after. Men look after themselves.”
To sink or swim means you are not given any help to succeed in life.
You are on your own, and you must be self-reliant to succeed, or you fail.
You are responsible for yourself, need to take care of your life and work hard to achieve your goals.
For many people, that sounds fair.
However, it was like a punch to the stomach at the time.
Sometimes reality hits you very hard.
The reason I found his words so harsh was that I had already been paying for my school supplies, clothing and anything else other than food and a place to sleep since I was 13.
After a few months, when we got back down south, my mother began asking for rent money.
So, thirty years ago, I earned $6.00 an hour, worked 12-hour days as a roofer, and gave my mother $50.00 a week for room and board.
Most young Japanese, and by young, I mean university students, have a very pampered life.
I hope they realize that and understand how much harder it is for those who had to sink or swim from a young age.
Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
This post is understandable by someone with at least a 6th-grade education (age 11).
On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 81.
The easier a passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100.