it ain't over

  I keep hearing all these stories about people that were margainlized, cheated, discriminated against, suffered heartache and depression and managed to be survivors. They feel entitled to something, although I'm not sure what. But it seems to be a common theme. Well, now I feel cheated. None of that ever happened to me. I'm even told that isn't so when I try to tell others that. It's like it is the expected thing. I'm not wearing any ribbons, flying any flags or displaying certain colors. I just don't have any besides the American flag and some ribbons I was awarded while in the Navy. Looks pretty silly wearing them on civilian clothes, although I've heard where it is common enough for a British person to wear their military medals on their civilian clothes.

  The truth is I grew up in a family. Mom, Dad, two brothers and one sister. None of those had special needs, none of those ever did anything exceptional. No, just your standard run of the mill family. We weren't poor, we weren't rich. I suppose we would be called middle class but it would have been on the lower end of that spectrum according to the government. We had sickness, disappointments and misfortunes. We got by. That's what we called that, getting by, it wasn't being a survivor. You had to be in some very serious situation before you qualified for that desigination. It usually involved the loss of some body part or greivous injury. In fact almost everything that happened to us we would shrug off by saying, I'll survive.

 Well the truth is when I was growing up we were taught to not complain about everything. No need to cry over spilt milk was a common saying. The other side of that was, if something bad happened to you, you didn't talk about that. That was doubly true if you were the one that caused the bad thing to happen. You didn't want anyone else to know about that if possible. Life isn't all that hard unless you want to make it that way. You just have to start out relizing it isn't about you. Understand that and the rest gets a lot easier. The only people that can make it about you are; other people. That's how that works. Then you need to understand lesson two, failing isn't success. Sucess is sucess. You aren't always going to be sucessful. The objective is always to have others believe this is your first try at it. I'm not telling you I failed the test three times before and now I've passed. Nope, the only thing you will hear is, I passed the test. 

  Listening to all of this, almost daily, is causing me to feel cheated somehow. I deserve so much more! Now there's a phrase I hear frequently and it has become a pet peeve of mine. All the ads, especially the lawyers, saying you deserve this or that. You deserve to have the same things as everyone else. The truth is, you have to earn everything and anything you want in this life. After you have earned that, you deserve to get that. The thing is, you have to earn it! You are entitled to just three things, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The rest of it is up to you. You are responsible for you. Quit blaming everyone else for your choices. Whatever happened in the past, happened in the past. Learn from that and leave it there. It's the only way things change. Keep using the past to build today, and you will wind up with the past. Past failures were just that, failures. 

  All I'm saying is, I'm not a survivor. I will say, I've managed to get by. I'll take credit for having navigated this far without the need to be a survivor. A great deal of that I owe to plain old good luck. You really can't control everything. What others choose to do will affect you that's inevitable. That will not change to suit you. I'll also take credit for having learned from past mistakes, past failures. A few times I learned that wasn't the way to go, and so changed course. I wasn't always happy about that, but realized the necessity of doing so. I wasn't a victim of anything but my own choices. As I heard often enough growing up, "you made your bed, now lie in it." Yes, sometimes that was very uncomforatble. My only recourse was to change the sheets. But I grew up with the knowledge that no matter what happens, I'll get by. Seventy one years, I'm still here, still getting by. You see I figure it this way. Survivors figure it is over, victims figure it isn't their fault. It isn't over. And yes sometimes we are victims, it happens, and it will happen again. As I said, it ain't over. 

                                                                          

 

                                                Stay the course is my advice.