Sometimes it can be really depressing to walk out of a grocery store and look into the eyes of someone who is starving and holding up a sign. That emotional story lingers for a long time. I want to scream at how unfair life is, or hide in shame from wanting to buy the excessive thingamajig that I didn’t need. And I feel “guilty” for making more money than some people, yet I complain that it’s not enough.
These pressures, added to the politics of campaigning and “choosing sides”, drive many of us to hide or bury our heads in the sand. “No, don’t tell me what Romney or Obama said. Wait, Mommy wars and Ann Romney – really? I thought mommy wars was about the guilty wedge that drives working moms to become over-achievers so we can spend every non-working moment with our children and focus on quality-time, not whether moms are criticized for never working a day in their life”. Truth be told, I wouldn’t work a day in my life, either. Would you?
My father once said to me, “It’s inexcusable that the average American cannot explain what a progressive tax system is”. Uh oh, I better go google that in a hurry, in case he asks me.
The pressure can be so intense, and it’s driving us to drink more coffee, eat more donuts and pay excessive amounts of money for massage or yoga.
We are working twice as hard for the same amount of money our parents earned, and still somehow the dollars do not go as far. So in reality, how can we be a part of our compassionate community and pay attention, when we are so far buried in the sand, we cannot tell which way is down or up?
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