Life Is Not Fair

That's the summary I came to in my mind after hearing a radio advertisement that totally set me off. The same idiot who ate 5,000 worth of calories every day for thirty days at a fast-food restaurant just to prove that - eating 5,000 calories a day will make you fat, duh! has a television show featuring publicity stunts to prove his other preconceived ideas. One show will feature a man who was cut from his job because the work went overseas, and his soundbyte featured in the advertisement made me yell at the radio - "The American dream was taken away from me." So, what is the American dream? That you'll get some basic job, work there for great wages and health benefits for the rest of your life, retire early at 62 and live happily ever after forever, Amen? Sorry, we're living in the wrong universe for that. Let me direct you back to the title of my post. Life? Totally not fair. You can give up on your dreams if things go wrong, which they will. Unless your dream is unrealistic, you can always keep working towards your dream. Maybe you'll achieve it. Maybe not. See that not fair thing above. It's the American dream, not the American guarantee. For that matter (for my non-U.S. readers :) ) it's not even just the American dream anymore. In any country where there is economic freedom, a person can work towards success.

Is it great that manufacturing jobs are going overseas? Not necessarily. I've read articles by lots of economists with good points but different opinions, and I don't know the big picture of world economy well enough to posit my own opinion. Whatever the reason, however, people lose jobs. It's a sad fact of life, but no one owes us employment, or a "living wage," or anything else. I'll never forget a woman complaining on a radio call-in show a month or so back that she makes so much better money driving a truck in Florida than in Ohio, and why can't Ohio do something about it, as she lives in Ohio three or four months out of the year. To the reasonable query of why she doesn't just live in Florida full time: "It's too hot down there in the summer." The radio host let this pass. I wouldn't have. Why should the state or anyone else improve your life for you? If you can't take the heat, stay out of the whinefest!

Do I rant when things are difficult, or maybe even ... unfair? Heck yeah. But I know it's up to my husband and I to work through hard times, even if we didn't cause them. Sometimes I falter and break down and want to give up, but for things to get better, eventually I have to pull myself back. Even if people help me to get up, I still have to get back up to change things. People, not a government plan, mind you. We can and should help each other, but we can't do it for each other.

I want to start carrying around a big bag full of pacifiers. Everytime somebody starts whining about how the government should do this or that, I'll just hand them a pacifier. Think it'll work? Nah, you're right. It'd take a miracle. ;)