First Friday Flashbacks

The only things I would change in this post from 2008, would be to make it all in CAPITALS and BOLD it. Nothing has changed. If anything, it has only gotten worse.

A Nation Of Victims

First Posted July 2, 2008


Its All A Game


I have seen a growing trend over the years that has really been bugging me. With each new 'crisis' or 'disaster' that befalls mankind it just seems to get worse. It is a crisis of perspective and expectation. We have become a nation of victims and no one seems to be questioning it. I surmise that this is because there is more money to be made from victims than from people that can just 'suck it up' and deal with it.

A few of the long running list of examples that cause me to think this way.

The numerous people I known through the years that always blame someone else for something going wrong.

If they hit a tree with their car....it is the trees faults, or better yet the property owner that owns the tree...he should have put reflectors on that thing.

The drunken person that stumbles on the curb and knocks his teeth out.....it is the cities fault for making the curb too high....or Budweiser's fault for not putting a large warning label on the beer.

The folks wailing in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina because they didn't have anyplace to live....it is the governments fault for not being able to hold back the ocean. (Hello? You live in a city that is below sea level....)

The folks that are railing about high gas prices....but thought nothing of it when they bought that Ford Expedition 2 years ago, assuming gas would never get more expensive (have gas prices EVER gone down?).

And always there are the attorneys waiting in the wings ready to help you get what you are "entitled" to for a small fee. Because you can't collect anything if you aren't a victim.

We now live in a society of 'entitlements' where we all feel we are "owed" something and if we don't get it, we will kick and scream until we DO get it.

I guess THE memo sort of got lost somewhere along the way, but in case some of us didn't get around to reading it;

1. It is a dangerous world, if you don't pay attention, you are going to get hurt. If you get hurt...learn from it.

2. If you don't understand it, stay away from it until you do.

3. Floods, fires, lightening, hurricanes, tornado, earthquakes....they happen, be prepared. (Better to pay your insurance premiums before the accident than pay a lawyer afterwards, or worse yet rely on the government)

4. If you figure things out on your own, you learn and grow. If you pester others to do it for you or pay folks to get it done, it won't get done right and they will be enabling you to fail.

5. We don't all get a trophy just for putting on the uniform and sitting on the bench. Failure is a part of life, it is supposed to motivate us to do better. That is the way nature intended it and it isn't nice to fool with mother nature. I could never trust someone that has not learned from failure. It is what determines character.