When I was a kid, we weren't exactly flush for a lot of my growing up. Granted, I wouldn't have known it because my mother often worked several jobs to feed my sister and I. My mother would not let us wallow in the bucket of self pity that she saw in others. Whenever we started feeling "poor" she'd grab us up and spend the last of our money to take us out for a big night at Shakey's Pizza. "Poor people don't eat at Shakey's Pizza so we aren't poor," she'd demand.

It's a lesson I've kept with me all my life.