Kids WILL change your schedule and command a large share of your time. They have schedules outside the house, homework and school issues that need to be dealt with, and even though you give them chores to do, the amount of work around the house is multiplied considerably because they do everything in hyperspeed–eat, change clothes, make messes, you name it, you’re always dealing with SOMETHING, which often makes it difficult to concentrate on what you’re planning to do. Just trying to keep up with their energy levels and mood swings can be draining.

So it’s important to realize that different people, in different circumstances and facing unique problems won’t have absolute control over time and efforts. But I think the important thing to take away is that even when we’re “in the weeds” so to speak, we still need to have a plan/goal ahead of us that we move toward if only gradually.

Circumstances are real and they DO slow us down, but we can’t camp in them either, not if we plan on having any kind of engaging future.

If I may indulge in a tangent, I saw “Julie & Julia” today, and it was quite inspiring. Julie is a would-be writer who counteracts her ADD tendencies by making herself stick to a daily assignment of cooking and blogging about it. How could I not be reminded of you, Trent, with your love of food and dedication to this forum? Self-discipline is tough sometimes, but you and she are living proof that it can pay off. Afterall you both got book deals, and all I’ve gotten is jealous.

If I look in the mirror, I must admit I’m not going to feel fulfilled until I publish my writing somewhere besides here and those silly comment boxes at the end of online articles. I’m not entirely sure what I want to say, but I have a consuming need to express myself for catharsis and the sheer joy of playing with words.

So I’m dabbling with a few short stories and poems and wondering if I ought to set up a blog too. My problem is always dropping projects and never picking them up again. I either have ADD or it’s part of the manic phase of my bipolar disorder. Sometimes I have too many ideas to keep up with, and other times I’m too depressed to act on anything. Whatever the deal is, it’s my problem and nobody else’s. I can either try to overcome it or wallow in self-pity the rest of my life.

So I do believe in self-determination and not giving up. I also know the journey to success is harder for some than others. As I sit here on my fat @$$ collecting disability checks, I may be the scourge of many of your readers’ imaginations. If I’d had kids (or my tubes became untied), I might be one of those villified welfare mothers who supposedly suck up the resources of our great capitalist nation. I’ve certainly harangued myself for being a failure and felt ashamed to accept government assistance.
Yet I don’t blame anyone else for accessing help when they need it.

America has such a bewildering blend of sympathy, apathy and outrage when it comes to the poor. It’s exhausting to contemplate and frustrating to navigate. There’s a class war going on, but we try to pretend we don’t have castes, no matter how hard it may be to change one’s station. Instead of a Cold War, we have a Gold War which is just as furtive and far-reaching.

Well, I warned you I was going off on a tangent. Looks like there was more than one, so sorry to spout off. It’s 3 a.m. and I need to let this and myself rest. Power to the People, y’all, and PEACE!

It was one of the major reasons why I was able to get out of debt–I stopped playing the vicitm, I stopped blaming everyone else and I did something about it.

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Also, while more men are losing their jobs than women (because they’re paid more and higher ranked, due to institutionalized sexism, and laying them off saves companies more money) women and blacks are more likely to have underwater mortgages. There was an article in the NYT recently about how mortgage companies specifically targeted blacks (and I think women). That is not just about poor individual decision-making.

I suggest you read some sociology.

The article really doesn’t address those who DO work hard, do the right thing, follow all the rules, and yet just can’t make it.

Yes, goals of marketing/advertising are to separate people and their money. But the gravity of the situation is only as grave as each of us makes it out to be.

Kevin (#2) points out, it is necessary to find ways to filter out the marketing. Turning off the idiot box is a great first step.

I find that living by intention is a great way to filter out marketing clutter:

1. Stay active, physically &/or mentally: Think about it, when are you more apt to get spammed by marketing? TV and other passive activities, when you don’t have to think. More room in the brain for what shouldn’t be there.

2. Planning & Goal Setting: Sometimes you can’t get away from marketing & advertising. Billboards, LCD’s in elevators, your best friend ranting on and on about his/her latest gizmo. Goals and solid plans to back them squash any subliminal message those Ph’D's can whip up.

* What if the mere act of just getting out of bed each day was your greatest success? Cause for many people that’s about all they can do. Literally.

* what if you worked your whole life, always worked two or more jobs, and found yourself kicked to the curb as many autoworkers and others who saw mismanaged companies sent to bankruptcy…you tried to get retrained but there was no help and you don’t have the money to learn a new skill in your 50s and 60s.

* What if you’d be happy to take a minimum-wage job but no one will hire you because they don’t believe you’d stick around? (DUH. Like the turnover with teenagers isn’t huge!)

* How do you find work if you can’t even get interviews? (How many of you have provided realistic leads, contacts, etc.? Rather than just useless comments.)

Wake up people. The world is tough, and getting tougher as the “haves” realize they may not have it anymore and are so fearful of this they’ll do anything to make sure nobody else gets “theirs.”

People are not victims, but often one’s circumstances are such that you cannot get out of them. Some holes are deep and actually get deeper.

If any of you actually worked with people who have tough lives and see how hard they work to make them better when the odds are, quite frankly, against them, you might stop putting people down and learn some compassion.

More importantly, instead of judging, you could offer help that allows someone to be responsible.

Treat people like crap long enough and they believe it. That’s what has happened to a lot of folks.

Success is a relative term. Getting up each day and doing the best you can is all you can do, regardless of the results.

And success also often comes on the back of others. A lot of people take credit for success that rightly belongs to the hard work of others. Some of those are the very people who don’t realize their own dreams. They are too busy making YOURS come true! At their literal expense. (I know people who have worked to make franchises successful for owners. Greedy owners who don’t even pay for any form of healthcare for their workers…lest it interfere with their excessive profit.)

The judgmental attitude of so many, apparently including you, is an additional burden. Your aunt may find that if she is offered physical therapy and decent pain control will find that she can eventually become mobile again. I just wonder if anyone is going to be bothered to pay for that for her.

It’s also a very American-culture type post. These beliefs are ingrained in our society. IMO, they aren’t very helpful or realistic beliefs.

John DeFlumeri Jr

Not too many years ago, I realized that, much like Trent mentions in his post, I am not a “victim” of those any more than I am a “victim” financially.

I might not be able to do much, but I believe I can and should do what I can. I’ll never run a marathon – does that mean I shouldn’t walk when I can or, on a really bad day, just get out of bed and stand up? I have an aunt who isn’t that old who is completely bedridden. Her health problems aren’t the direct reason – she just wouldn’t do anything if it was the least bit uncomfortable, so eventually, her muscles atrophied because she refused to get out of bed when she was feeling achy. Now, she’d give anything just to stand up and can’t.

I feel very bad for her, but like I feel about some of the money situations, I understand – and she understands – that she helped bring herself to this place. And I’ve decided I’m NOT going to do that.

That said, you’re right, a positive attitude will not make you well. But it will make you willing to do what you can, I think.

On the one hand, I am grateful for everything I have, and for being blessed with not only a great deal of smarts and talent, but excellent self discipline. I don’t like to complain about money because I know that I am so much better off than people in poor countries who are living off of food scrounged from garbage dumps. People in countries who work their whole life to own a piece of land and then have it taken from them to host the 2008 Summer Olympics. Ahem.

On the other hand, by the time I buy a bag of flour, it has been taxed over 200 times (taxes on the seeds, the water, the soil, the fertilizers, the land, the labor, etc.). Those taxes go to fund poor to mediocre public schools, war, welfare programs that have actually made the poverty problem worse, endless road construction paid for at over-market prices and done poorly, etc.

Is it not a form of victimization to have almost half of my paycheck go to fund things I do not value, and many of which actually harm me? Is it not a form of victimization to have my spending power so tremendously reduced by a government that wants to “print money” to pay for billion dollar spending plans? If I do not pay taxes I will lose everything, but if I do pay taxes I work twice as many hours as I have to, and realize far less financial growth than I would if the government would stick to the basics, and let the people stick to surviving.

I think that we need to remember that human beings are incredibly tenacious and clever. We have survived for many thousands of years without a government to let us know who’s a victim and which victims get handouts.

The attitude that so many people have that with proper diet and exercise we’ll be perfectly healthy, therefore it is our own darned faults we are sick is also NOT helpful. That magical thinking is going to blow up in your faces someday, too. And then you are going to end up hating yourself because you are now a lazy parasite just like all the other ill people.

And all the positive attitude in the world won’t change that reality, either of the hatred we suffer or the reality of our limited energy.