Responsibility and Blame

Its pretty easy and convenient to blame others.

Its much more difficult to take responsibility.

Now, things we do have consequences.

If you didn't acquire the right skills to compete, your failure to get a good job is your responsibility.

Of course its easier to blame the Government, or immigrants or something.

If you didn't save anything for retirement you won't have anything saved.

But its easier to blame the economy or those bills.

If your kids act as irresponsibly as you do its probably the example you set.

Its easier to blame the schools, society, culture, etc.

Life is hard.

You have to put some effort into it.

Some people think that they had a deal with America.

Get a basic education, and they would get a good paying job, have a nice family, house and car.

To some extent the media sold this concept.

It was never true.

Every generation had to fight and struggle to survive, from the settlers, to the farmers scratching a living from the earth, to the factory workers who saw their jobs disappear during the depression, to the generation that sacrificed so much to end fascism.

Then we got TV.

Now we had radio, but the images on TV showed that four person family, in that nice house, with a loving family who dealt with problems.

We saw a blueprint or how life was supposed to be, at least in the minds of the creators of the show.

We had daytime soap operas filled with the most elaborate plot twists and more cases of Amnesia and newly found siblings than you could shake a stick at.

It was all fantasy, but it crept into the culture.

That's how life was, or was supposed to be.

Now, some people might live like that, I suppose its possible.

Most of us don't.  We scramble and scrape and do the best we can unless we give up.

You end up smoking your cigarettes, drinking your beer,watching your TV until a savior comes along and tells you its not your fault, its "them".

You did what you were supposed to and didn't get the reward because "they" took it away.

Well you didn't do what you needed to do to succeed.

But why take responsibility for your own life when you can blame "THEM".