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Another Perspective
Almost Grown
This year has been one of the roughest years of my young adult
life, and that is something as I have had many tough ones. I
truly would like to blame it on someone else, but, in earnest,
the only one who I look to is myself. I have been given
everything, and, for the most part, blown it all; but, hey, you
live and learn. In the past, it was always okay, because I could
pick up the pieces rather quickly, but this time it has been very
different.
For some reason, what once came easy wasn't anymore, and the
struggle became too much. I had to give up a lot, or a better way
of saying it is: "much was taken away." I was angry for a while,
and quite depressed, as no eleventh hour miracle came knocking on
my door. But a funny thing started to happen. What started out as
anger had turned into acceptance, and that very acceptance,
itself, turned into joy and ease.
I started to really enjoy the things that I think we are actually
supposed to enjoy. I started to meet people who I never thought I
would or wanted to meet. My world that had become so small was
starting to become so huge. I wanted a bailout, but wouldn't that
put me in the same situation I was in before? I wanted the tax
check in the mail that never seemed to be coming, even though,
every day, I looked. I wanted what was yours to become mine
because, hell, it seemed so much easier than trying to get my
own. I wanted you to say, "You poor sap, I am sorry here you go."
But that did not happen, and I am so grateful that it did
not.
I was forced to grow up and mature in ways that I really didn't
know that I could, or ever wanted to. I always wanted to be a
Toys-R-Us kid. I get it, I do, and a lot of people out there are
struggling as I am. But, I don't want yours anymore because I am
confident that I can make it on my own; and when I do, I would
truly like to keep it this time. We have become a nation of
addicts and Obama is promising to be the new dealer with the fix
that we have come to need. All good dealers don't want their
addicts to get clean and then cut the dealer out of the picture.
It is time for my generation to get sober, and realize it no
longer needs the quick fix.
There is no better feeling than earning an honest day's wage for
an honest day's work. Sadly that isn't the nature of many of us
anymore. I have grown up in a period where everything was taken
care of for us, and, unfortunately that has created a generation
of pansies, myself included. If anyone should want Obama to win
it's me, because he is promising to give me something of yours,
no questions asked. Hey, what is better than free money? If
anybody should want what he promises it is I, and my generation.
Why not, we have been taken care of very well, and really haven't
had to grow up much.
But I want to grow up and feel what it is like to be a man. I
want to experience how my grandfather struggled to make it better
for my father, and how my father struggled to make it better for
me. I want to know what it is like to earn, and I want to know
what it is like to save. I want to be helped up when I fall, but
no longer do I want to be picked up. Struggle is the only thing
that forces us to grow. If you take that out of the equation, you
are left with what you have right now, a nation unprepared for
the struggle. So, of course, someone who makes you a promise that
he will feed you a fish, and not teach you how to fish, sounds
good. But, I assure you, when you learn how to fish, the fish
will taste so much better.
Comments
Leave a Comment
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Eric Frantz| 10.24.08 @ 9:58AM
Excellent point of view. I, myself, have already had this revelation at my current age of 23. Critical thinking has been lost (was it ever found?) by our young people. I do my part for an honest day's work for an honest wage, but something was missing when I first started my work life. Mainstreet media had programmed me to believe that I could get by on someone else's dime. You are right, when you learn how to fish, the fish does indeed taste so much better.
Spartuchis| 10.24.08 @ 12:47PM
I forgot whence I saw this, but I once read something that struck me as quite true--namely, that the human propensity for endless growth and development is vastly overstated, and people mature into who they are, for better or worse, and if you continue to grow beyond that point, well, it's probably cancer. But I always was a cynical old fart, even when I was a child, and look forward to one day being an actual cynical old fart. Which leads me to my next point: wait 'till you have children. Then you'll know the meaning of struggle.
John Blake| 10.24.08 @ 6:39PM
The "teach to fish" phrase is from Confucius, now amounting to virtual cliche. Here's an Obama-centric addition to the canon: "Who accepts something for nothing will receive nothing for anything." Commissars, gauleiters, mandarins and mullahs all agree, parasitic free-loading is the best. You go, O!
Dorinda| 10.24.08 @ 10:02PM
Old Proverb: "It is better to give a man a habit of industry than a sum of money". Obama will be industrious taking sums of money.
Diane Smith| 10.25.08 @ 3:16PM
The evolution of our society is a wonder to behold. Are you familiar with the phrase "he bought the farm.", meaning he died? I read it somewhere, that in WWI, "doughboys" took out a life insurance policy, so that in the even of their death, that policy would buy the farm their struggling parents worked but did not own. That was the era of children thinking of their parents' welfare.
Then came the Great Depression - the real one - not the one we face today where everyone is going to maybe have to fire his personal trainer. No on had anything to live on, much less anything to give to or leave to in their will.
Ah, but along comes WWII to bring us out of the Depression and post WWII when the American Dream begins to take shape. With it comes the desire of parents to give to their children everything they never had. And what child was ever born who did not think that was a really good idea?
So, began the emergence of the Perpetual Adolescent. No longer did he sing "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth...." It became "All I want for Christmas is more, more, more. More than I ever, ever got before...."
Its a tough sell, raising a child today who wants his own cell phone, Ipod, MP3 , Play Stations(I don't even know what some of things are) but they want it and they get it.
I was in a store waiting to be waited on recently and the woman ahead of me was making some such outlandish purchase for her surly young son. She said "My husband will kill me for getting him this." I said "Then why are you getting it?" Her reply? "My husband will shut up before my son would if he didn't get it."
Welcome to adulthood, Judah. Don't spoil your kids, when you get some.
Fran Rose| 10.25.08 @ 9:42PM
It sounds like you're headed in the right direction, and I'm sure that you will succeed in all of your endeavors. Let's hope that this great country of ours and its future leaders can do the same.
tish| 10.28.08 @ 11:31AM
Kinda makes me want to record the whiney wailing brats in those stores and replay them on repeat and top volume at a NEA meeting. You know, the "self-esteem" educrats who brainwash our nation's kids into thinking that they are "worth it" at all costs and in all things. The adolescent mentality had taken root after the educrats started pushing that garbage and now the children who were first indoctrinated in it are now parents who don't know how to BE parents.
As a mommy, I have a wonderful word for my daughter that works wonders in the stores. "No." If any wailing were to ensue, a tailswat would result with another ...."No." My daughter knows that she does not whine and wail for anything. As a kid, I didn't swallow the "self-esteem" garbage (my parents taught me well), as an adult with a child, I teach my daughter reality. She is a happier child for it too.