CREEDE HINSHAW: There are no self-made people

The Oct. 19, 2015, issue of Forbes features The Forbes 400, this magazine’s annual list of the 400 richest people in America. A determined Donald Trump, eyes piercing, lips pursed and head slightly cocked, peers straight into the camera on the front cover, assessing the viewer. A quote flanks his portrait: “I look better if I’m worth $10 billion than $4 billion.”

The Donald is only 121st on the top 400 list, his fortune estimated by Forbes at a paltry $4.5 billion, his “self-made” score a 5 on a 10-point scale where 0 equals inherited the money and 10 equals earned the fortune.

Forbes’ provides no explanation of how they arrived at the “self-made scale,” nor do the editors say which end of the scale they prefer. I suppose Forbes’ self-made scale tries somehow to figure out how little a person started with and how much they now have, i.e., the classic “I pulled myself up by my bootstraps” story.

From my standpoint as a preacher of the gospel, there is no such thing as a self-made person. We are creatures of the Heavenly Father and get ourselves into deep trouble whenever we try to make ourselves the creator. If you need a quick review on this observation, read Genesis 11: 1-9 where the ancient peoples built a tower to the heavens in prideful arrogance.

Just because you and I aren’t building skyscrapers with our own names plastered on them in outsized letters doesn’t mean that we are off the hook. Examine yourself closely and you’ll probably find some immortality project of self-aggrandizement in your recent past or even in your present.

As much as we all love bootstrap stories, these narratives always involve selective forgetfulness of how other people helped us become who we are. I read a stirring story of D’Vonte Freeman today on the sports page. This 23-year-old Florida State graduate, a 5 foot 8 running back, has energized the Atlanta Falcons this season.

Freeman was deemed too slight to contribute to a team in such stunning fashion, but the article documented the tenacity this young adult developed growing up in a frightening part of Miami, Fla. He was surrounded by death and drugs, but was determined not to be caught up in this environment.

Even so, he could not be called self-made. Mentors were cited and a sobering job as a teenager at a funeral home made him realize he wanted to choose life and not death. We are who we are because of — or in spite of — so many other people.

Here’s another nugget from Forbes: They estimated how much Donald Trump’s name, or brand, is worth. Trump says it’s worth $3 billion. While dismissing that inflated figure, Forbes conjectured that his name brand is worth somewhere between $125 million-$500 million.

I pose this final question: What is your name worth? Have you inflated its value? One’s name is really the only possession we have worth protecting.

Email columnist Creede Hinshaw, a retired Methodist minister from Macon, at [email protected].