I’m not going to go into where this comes from because I truly care about the people who riled me up, and the incident that caused this is far enough back that I’ve had time to chew this over and get most of the bile out.

But here are my musings* on life:

1. Life is not fair.  The trick is being strong enough and prepared enough to deal with when it’s not fair to you.  Whining is not dealing.
2. In most of life’s situations, there will be winners and there will be losers.  Real life keeps score.
3. In order for a human being to live, something else must die.  Maybe it’s a plant, maybe it’s a lamb.  But in order for you to eat, someone is killing something else. Whining to me because I prefer my food to come from something that has legs or fins is annoying.
4. Not every person who joins the military is Audie Murphy or Gunnery Sergeant Hartmann.  As a matter of fact, most aren’t.  Most are ordinary people doing their job.  They just do it in circumstances and conditions that 99% of our population will never fully understand, and because of that they are exceptional.
5. Not every veteran has PTSD.  There are a lot of men and women who will bear scars, both internal and external, and we have a debt of honor to provide them with everything we can give them to heal.  But some people are just assholes.  Need to tell the difference?  Let’s try this:  Was the dickhead who beats his wife and kids a dickhead before he deployed?  If so, then it wasn’t the deployment.  Corollary:  Just because someone served, please don’t assume that they’re a ticking time bomb. It’s annoying and insulting.
6. Every child is a wonderful gift from God.  But not every kid who gets into trouble, or has trouble with math has a learning disability.  Quit looking for a biological excuse for the fact that your kid isn’t the next Stephen Hawking or that you never taught them to obey adults who are placed in authority over them.
7. Life is hard.  Has been ever since Mother Eve decided to talk to the snake.  You can either deal with that or sit down on the side of the trail and die.  Your choice.  But please choose quickly.  Some of us are trying to deal.
8. Not everyone needs to go to college.  Remember that kid who didn’t do so well at math or English, no matter how hard they tried?  Putting them in a four year liberal arts or hard science program is nothing but a formula for someone to either bail out of school with a huge student loan debt and no degree or for someone to get a huge student loan debt and a degree that means next to nothing.  There is no shame in learning a skilled trade, and the guys who took shop classes in school and went on to learn a trade when I went to high school are for the most part making at least as much money as I do.
9. When you get in trouble, you either have mitigating circumstances or you have excuses.  A mitigating circumstance is “I had to steal bread so that I could feed my children”.  An excuse is “My father ran off when I was young and I never got enough hugs”.  Guess which one I have an iota of sympathy for?
10. No-one owes you anything just because they share a biosphere with you.  Get up, brush your teeth, and earn a living.

*musings, rant, ravings, whatever