OCCUPY WALL STREET

[theoddz]

Originally Posted by JAGG

How did I guess somehow Id be misuderstood. Taken out of context etc... I have plenty of epathy. And I also would give the shirt off my back to a total stranger and have, and would do it everyday gladly. I never expect anyone to do anything I wouldn't do myself. I have sevral very close family members who are disabled . I have plenty of epathy. I know exactly how it feels to lose everythng and have to start again. I have done twice in my life. I feel if you are in a situation because of your own laziness or poor choices or stupidity and then want to be bailed out I am totally 100 percent against that and always will be. If something happens to you which is not your fault, totally out of your control hell ya we should have programs in place to help you.

Brother, I see your point entirely, but I also see how reality works for many folks, too. I'm not going to pick you apart for your view.

I think what it all boils down to is this. Most folks make choices based on the best they can do, at the time they have to do it in, with what they have to work with. Sometimes, a person can't always make the "best" choice that another person would agree with. Most of the time, it's entirely dependent on what you have to work with that your choices hinge on. There have been times in my life when I've had to make some rather unsavory choices, and perhaps someone else might have viewed what I chose to be a "wrong" choice, but I had nothing else to work with and few options to choose from. I ended up making a few choices that I didn't even agree with, and would have rather *not* done, ordinarily, but I did what I felt I had to do, with what I had to work with.

I think there are a lot of folks out there who are in some pretty desperate situations, and none of their options are what those of us, viewing it from the outside, would choose, but it is what it is for these folks. Who judges another's choices from the outside?? How do we fairly do that?? How do we know what another's priorities are in their situations?? We don't. We've *all* had tough times, at one time or another. It's the human experience.

Sometimes I shake my head when I see someone do something that I, personally, might think as being a "bad choice", but I seldom am in a position to know exactly what that person's situation is, and what their options truly are. For instance, as someone who has never had children of my own (because I didn't *choose* to have them), I could look at someone with 2-5 kids, who is living on $20K/yr (or less), and think to myself "Dayyyum, keep yer legz SHUT!!!", but you know, that person may have, as a priority in their lives, a desire for a (large??) family. Now, some/most of us might see that and think the same thing I think, but the reality for that person with the kids is that family, and having kids is *the* most important thing in their lives. They may or may not have been raised by their parents to have this as their priority, or they may have been raised in a large family with the same mentality. Their take on it is, "We'll have the family we want and we'll somehow make it, the same as my parents did when I was born. We'll get by somehow. We'll make it work." Someone like me, however, sees that as a piss poor choice in life. I don't share those priorities, so I have very little empathy for someone who just keeps "poppin' 'em out" with no idea about how they're going to provide for these kids. Still, do I get to judge?? Do I have a right to condemn?? I don't really care for folks like that to be driving my taxes up with an increased demand on public assistance. On the other hand, I collect disability from the federal government, based on the fact that I developed a severe health problem during my time in military service. Taxpayers pay me a rather good check every month, yet I'm able to still work (and I have a full time job) as I am able to. You know, that fact alone pisses a LOT of folks off. Thing is, they don't see or feel the pain I do as I move through my day with chronic severe pain. I "suck it up" most of the time and I don't complain about it. There's no need to. It is what it is, but I've made a *choice* to keep going and cope with this pain in order to fulfill my own priority of staying "useful" for as long as I can, as much as I can. These other folks who might want to stand in judgment of my choice don't know my personal circumstance, or might not understand my priority of needing to maintain "usefulness" as long as I can. For me, it's not money. My priority is, at the end of the day, what I think of myself. My self esteem is very much linked to my sense of "usefulness". So, who gets to judge me?? Who knows exactly how much I hurt, and what I go through to just be able to live MY priority....my need to be useful?? That's important to me, just as having that big family and "figuring it out as we go/living hand to mouth/living with public assistance". One person's priority might be someone else's view of a "poor choice". Who gets to judge??

I've had this discussion many times, over the years, with folks who have all sorts of different viewpoints. My conclusion is this......none of us have a right to judge others' choices. We're all doing the best we can, with what we have, with what we have to do it with, at the time we have to do it.

My .02

~Theo~