You Get What You Get and You Don't Get Upset!
I love this little phrase I learned from my kids. It is used often in my house to explain the rational behind certain "less than favorable" outcomes in response to bad behavior. A means of demonstrating personal responsibility for their actions.
I'm not sure when this lesson of personal responsibility started to disappear in adults, but often these days we hear excuse after excuse after excuse of why things are not going our way, and how it is always 'their' fault, not ours. The economy is Wall Street's fault, the discord in Washington is [name the politician/party of choice here]'s fault or whatever.
The truth of the matter is, is that we in many ways have given up control over our lives, children, families and the decisions we make, simply because it is easier to blame someone else. With regard to the economy, it wasn't Wall Street that told us to go out and run up massive debt, take out a mortgage on a house that was more than we could rationally afford, buy into to all of the sales and specials without reading the fine print, but yet we blame everyone else for the negative impact on our lives. At what point will we wake up and realize that some of the fundamental lessons previous generations learned still apply like; In good times, always ensure you have savings built up (2~6 months worth of salary) AND DON'T TOUCH IT! This still amazes me that people live pay check to pay check. It is also a lesson it took me years to learn. You pay car insurance for not having an accident, why not pay yourself for insurance incase your career, or forbid your life has an accident?
Always have a back up plan. This was a very hard lesson learned when I was let go after 9 years from my previous company. I never expected it, so when the day came, I was completely unprepared. No resume, no network, no information, nothing. But if you ask me today, I will tell you that every single one of them are out there and completely up to date, just in case. I still have conversations with people who, for whatever reason feel there is no need to focus on those things for various reasons, the top being "I've been with the company too long to be let go" or "What I do is too critical to be cut." WAKE UP! Everyone is suspect to taking the axe. Why? The Once-Mighty Dollar!
With reagard to politics, it seems that we always do the same thing, we align ourselves with one Party based on what the candidate is told is the agenda for the party. Polls are taken, bullet points are written up and everything is regurgitated across the party line. Here is the thing, at what point do we begin to take responsibility and demand more from our government? We elect who sells the better message based on what is the hot topic of the day. That message unfortunately has been crafted, honed and wrapped in golden honey-dipped double-speak to make us feel like they are going to fix things immediately. Newsflash, the problems of today will take a hell of a lot longer than 4 or even 8 years to fix.
The same thing could be said about the Military and actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Are we all really naive enough to think that we are powerful enough to run in a country, kick their ass, then leave with everyone throwing rose petals at our feet in a matter of one or two years? Did we forget about the fact that to this day we still have a military presence in countries who we were at war with 70 years ago?
There are no quick fixes for anything in life. No short cuts, and everything has consequences. We have to stop expecting faster than the speed of light solutions or deals. Everything has a price, be it now or 5 years from now. You will pay in the end. Everyone is out for themselves and you have to protect yourself. Don't fall for the short term gain. It is the long-term planning that we should be demanding. I don't care if the employment numbers havent gone up in a month's time frame. Tell me where you are going to position us 5 - 10 years down the line for steady upward growth.
Politicians are quick to point out the fear in how our children and grandchildren will be living in the distant future. The scary thing is, they are right. But what is it that they are really working to do about it other than highlight it as a fear mechanism to get back in office? They spend more time blocking, fighting or debating endlessly just to make it to the next round of elections to hold on to their precious government benefits we so happily pay for. Just once, I would like to find a politician who is not towing the party line and has a true mind of their own with plausible solutions to our long-term stability and growth. Not even his/her own, but the ability to listen to his/her constituents who put them in office and fight for what WE want instead of spewing what is polled or heard on the campaign trail, or worse paid for by your neighborhood corporate lobbyist, just to get them back in office.
Anyhow, I think you see where I am going here. You were given two gifts, the gift of life AND the gift of choice. Why be in a rush to give that gift to everyone or everything around you through blame? That is exactly what we do when we allow external factors to dictate what occurs in our own life. We need to stop blaming everyone and everything else for your own problems and begin to take back the decisions in our lives and plan for our own security and future because I guarantee that no one else is going to do it for you.
On the way to work this morning listening to one of my favorite Podcasts, Your Mac Life with Shawn King, he was interviewing one of the co-founders of BusyMac about thier Mac application BusyCal. After looking at their website, I must say that I am quite impressed with what they have done on the desktop in terms of picking up some of the slack where iCal left off. 
