2012-09-10

SOD - Same Old Dilemma

I'm starting to think like Yogi Berra. It's deja vu all over again.

Nothing seems to work. Nothing functions as it should. Real discussion is next to impossible. Nobody is really responsible for anything. Everybody else is all screwed up. You really can't get anything accomplished. A major election is bearing down on the Americans, and there are more and more of them most likely thinking that there's no way that they can't waste their vote (a truly American idea). And those of us who think they have a clue are proposing one solution after another that may in fact solve one problem, but each of these "solutions" invariably causes a half-a-dozen new problems.

No, it's not a happy place. Deja vu all over again is what we know as a rut. We're in one, and it's an exasperating one on top of everything else. Poor us.

Well, no. Yes, nothing works, and we're all in an exasperating rut, but I'm afraid you're not going to get any pity from me.

It's not that I'm a pitiless person, far from it. I like to think, and I do try whenever possible, to awaken my own sense of empathy and compassion for anyone who finds him or herself in a inescapable (or perceived inescapable) dilemma. And, I'm especially sensitive and sympathetic toward people who find themselves in dilemmas that are not of their own making. Those are the people I believe we are called to help. We, however, are none of the above.

No, I think I've come to the conclusion that things are just the way we want them. We all know things are "suboptimal", to use a non-word to describe what is really a non-situation. Things don't have to be as they are, but there are precious few of us who want them to be different. And we all know that most folks are only interested in any kind of change if it is a change that provides them some kind of personal advantage: if there's nothing in it for me, why should I be involved at all? Bad question.

What is in it for you is precisely what is in it for everyone else: something different. You get what you ask for, you get what you work for, and you get what you deserve.

If you think things are going to hell in a handbasket, well, don't come crying to me. If things aren't as you like them, there is only one person to blame: yourself.

Yes, in case you missed it: it's all your fault. So, as the Brits like to say, "SOD it."

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