We All Want Too Much

It is a nice, warm, sunny day as the weather has been this past month. There were a couple chilly days here in Oregon–in the middle of summer. Now, there are droughts in the midwest and the crops are failing. well, I am sure that our food prices will climb. The price of gasoline dropped off a bit, which I liked, but it is climbing again. They always blame the oil companies. I blame us all. I blame myself too. We want everything and we want it now!

I think that we in the United States have become spoiled. We want everything and disregard common courtesy and even laws because they are inconvenient. I remember when I was a child. I was the typical kid who yelled when I thought my siblings got something that I did not get. Then I learned that if I worked, I could get what I wanted. So, I worked and earned money and bought what I wanted. When I was a teenager, we had a rough time and I gave much of the money I earned to my mother to help. Later, I joined the Army, which was an organization that demanded all that I could produce. I hated it; and I loved it. I stayed in the Army for 20 years.

When I retired from the Army and went to work in a civilain company, I was shocked by the attitudes of my co-workers. They all had a job and would only do that work; once they finished their work, they sat around talking until it was time to go home. When I finished my work, I often went to other departments to help them finish their work. One of my co-workers got upset with me for doing that. I told him that I was getting paid to work, so I worked the entire time that I was there. I realized that most of my peers thought they should get paid just to be there; so, they stayed at the plant and talked. They got paid to talk; I could not bring myself to do that. I was there to work–I earned my pay.

How many of you get frustrated when you drive? I get very frustrated because people drive too fast; or too slow. They seldom drive the speed limit. Then, the fast drivers tailgate the slow drivers. They do pass them they tailgate them. Oh, my, they won’t even slow down when the car in front of them slows to make a turn. Some [like me] will zip around the corner because if they slow down for the turn the tailgater will hit their car.

Most people do not know how to make a proper left-turn. I make the effort to make proper left-turns. I seldom ever cut across the left-turn of the intersection. Most everyone I know, will cut off the left-turn lane of the intersecting road. I have a friend who always cuts off the left-turn lane of the intersecting road; and he SOMETIMES WILL CUT ACROSS THE THROUGH TRAFFIC LANE TOO. When I ride with him, his driving scares me.

I am amazed because people don’t care how they drive. They don’t care about the traffic laws. They do only what they want to do. We want to be given preferencial treatment. We want all that wee can get for as little as we can get it for. Well, the governemt is the same. It wants all that it can get; and it get it from us. Big business is the same. Wall Street is the worst. The commodities brokers and the Big Banks are strangling us. Then we bicker with each other rather than confront Wall Street and the Banks.

I don’t know right now what the solution is. The one thing that I can think of it to stop myself from indulging in the “I WANT GAME”. It is very difficult, but I am trying to resist my impulses to buy all of the things that I want.