Some Lessons I Have Learned...

I could have gone funny with these with things like "Never play leap frog with a unicorn" or "don't put your money where your mouth is - you don't know where it's been..."  But that's definitely not the way I went...  Sorry for the rant, but it was needed...........

Warning – some of these may not be popular opinion (especially the first one), but they are mine...

Okay... Some lessons I have learned...

- That the word “illegal” no longer means anything if followed by the word immigration. I have absolutely no problem with immigration. But do it right.

- That if I were to pop out a litter, people would give me free crap and a tv show. One or two at a time obviously isn’t special in this world anymore...

- That I don’t need to pay my mortgage. All I have to do is cause a big scene and get the news involved with some sob story and I’ll get to keep my house anyway.

- That I can rack up as much debt as humanly possible and not pay it back. According to a commercial I hear frequently, if I have more than $10,000 in debt, I have the RIGHT to settle it for far less than that.

- That if I complain enough, people will give me whatever I want in order to shut me up. Like the woman in my office that complained about the new radio station we’ve been listening to enough to get it switched back to the one that everyone else hates.

- That if I am bad enough at my job, people will just start by-passing me completely and dumping my responsibilities on people who are efficient and too polite and hardworking to say “no.”

- That it’s perfectly acceptable to blow through stop signs, go through crosswalks while people are still in them, and speed as long as my car happens to be black and white with a light bar on the top.

- Also that I can blow through stop signs if I am a parent dropping their child off at summer school and am in way too much of a hurry to get to work to be able to realize that the people coming down the main street have the right of way.

- That if I hurt myself in some way - it is no longer my fault, but the fault of the person that sold me the thing I hurt myself with or that owns the place where I hurt myself.

Basically, it’s all about personal accountability and being a responsible human being... Everyone is so busy holding their hands out and expecting the world to give them everything that they don’t take the time to do the right thing. When all the “housing crisis” insanity was going on here in California, J called our mortgage lender out of curiosity to see about all the nice breaks that they were offering... And he was told that because we are current and always make our payment (plus extra!) that they couldn’t do anything for us. We would have had to have been at least six months behind in order for them to be willing to do anything.  What the what what?  We would have to be completely irresponsible in order to be rewarded?

There is a serious problem today with this way overblown sense of entitlement. Just watch the audition episodes of American Idol. I will never forget the 16 year old boy a couple seasons back... When told that he couldn’t sing and would not be going to Hollywood, the tears and bleeping began. The line that stuck with me was along the lines of: “I wanted to be famous by now.”

Umm... Kid? Come here and take seat with Auntie Kelly for a minute, mmkay? You are 16, have no discernible talent, and have done nothing to try to become famous. If you want to do something, you have to be willing to try more than playing World of Warcraft all day and going to one audition for a television show that is on a downward spiral... Now wipe those tears, go to school, apologize to your mother for shoving her away and swearing at her when she tried to comfort you...

Actually, hold on – Mom, can you come here for a second? Ok. Please stop reinforcing this behavior... When your son shoves you away and curses at you, don’t tell him that he “will be famous! They don’t know what they are talking about!” It’s not true. You know it, I know it, and now America knows it... Take your son home, wash his mouth out with soap, make him do his homework, and teach him how to work for the things he wants.

Woah – tangent. Sorry.

Where was I???

Oh, right... Look, I get that it sucks to have to be responsible. I certainly didn’t sign up for this whole “grown-up” thing. But it’s what happens... And if you break the law, you should be punished. If you sign a contract, then you should follow through. If you leave an unsecured loaded gun in your backseat and your 2-year-old grabs it and shoots you, you pretty much deserve it.  It's not the gun manufacturer's fault. (And you are really lucky that you were the one that was shot and not the 2-year-old.)  And if you buy a bunch of stuff using your credit cards, pay it back! Nothing is free, people! No one owes you anything.



I feel like I should be doing some of that “Mel Gibson” deep breathing from his phone calls... haha

I’ll hop down off my soap box now...