I mean two can play the poor me game. My uncle grew up half starving in a shack in Alabama during the depression then signed up for WWII and served in the Pacific Theater. After that, he volunteered to fight in Korea, "because I needed the money." When he came back he used the GI bill to get an education and became a teacher.
Boomers got drafted to fight in Vietnam and a lot of them died and had pretty rough patches if they made it back. They lived through probably the worst inflationary period in the 1970s along with the oil shock, and got replaced by computers and offshoring in the 80s and 90s. Their crushing factory jobs got outsourced and most of the farmers had to sell off their multi-generational family farms because massive agribusiness made it so they couldn't compete. A lot of them couldn't take it and killed themselves.
Go back further in time and it gets worse. I'm not saying you don't have it rough, but put it in perspective. Lots of generations, including the Boomers, had it rough.
Patterson was already out of college in 1972, Howard Hughes was still alive and was the richest man in the US, but Hughes was reclusive and accomplished more without attracting attention, compared to someone like Musk in a similar position today.
But Hughes Tool and Hughes Aircraft were only somewhat similar to working for Tesla or Spacex. This was the '70's and Hughes had made so much money decades earlier that his manufacturing operations were much more old-fashioned and he provided intentionally better jobs and security for engineers and workers than alternative contemporary employers like oil or automotive. Everything like that was still expected to be "career for life" if you wanted it to, with constant advancement in pay at least, if not job title.
All these companies had tons of applicants so like today the vast majority of highly qualified candidates never had a chance.
I was around back then so I'm officially a boomer according to current guidelines.
But I was not quite out of high school around 1972, so it was a little too late to be very similar at all.
This would be an exact quote in that long gone time frame, from millions of people my age, allow me to embellish:
"(1976) I am sorry but todays world is different to the one he grew up in. We face challenges that makes prioritizing 100% on family extremely hard."
IOW, this is what millions of the younger "boomers" sounded like by that time. Talking about fortunate people only a few years older than themselves. Not 50 years older at the time like Patterson is now.
Being extremely aware of things like this for 50 full years myself, people like Patterson with his background and philosophy, I really have always admired more than anything else.
It's easy for me to appreciate high-performers thriving in a more flourishing landscape without envy.
For one thing, that can set an example of what it is supposed to be like.
It's not my fault that the economy had been destroyed while I was still a teenager, and those who were already adults had opportunities that were never going to reappear.
And it's not their fault either, they were just barely adults at the time.
I figured I could whine over the roll of the dice, or focus on the reality of the situation.
Edit: No doubt I was born into an equally prosperous time as Patterson, that's what makes me "officially" a boomer. It was just too good to last once the crooks came into political power.
Boomers got drafted to fight in Vietnam and a lot of them died and had pretty rough patches if they made it back. They lived through probably the worst inflationary period in the 1970s along with the oil shock, and got replaced by computers and offshoring in the 80s and 90s. Their crushing factory jobs got outsourced and most of the farmers had to sell off their multi-generational family farms because massive agribusiness made it so they couldn't compete. A lot of them couldn't take it and killed themselves.
Go back further in time and it gets worse. I'm not saying you don't have it rough, but put it in perspective. Lots of generations, including the Boomers, had it rough.