How broke are we, Americans

I cannot say how people are doing in other states these days, but in good ole Florida people are looking kind of rough, tired and miserable… and so do their cars, and their houses (please, disregard the retired folks, they are doing just fine).

I do not know how Americans are constantly broke, but we are. I mean, we really are. The banged up cars we drive on highways, the cheap clothing we wear, the trailers we live in….

Not seeing our family from up North in years because we can not afford to visit them.

We make good money in America. How is it that we are so broke? Perhaps if people knew how to save money better, they would not have to put a newspaper and some tape over the broken car window. Have you ever seen Trailer Park Boys? It seems to me like we are turning into a bunch of Ricky’s and Randy’s, walking around without our shirts on and eating cheeseburgers…. what is going on?

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Time to go

A week or so later, the plane crash tactically planned by the German co-pilot still haunts me. I mean, it has been in the media so much too that I can not look away anymore. But that’s almost beside the point.

What haunts me is the conversation I had with my friend. He’s in the military, and I know he has seen a lot of things already and he definitely has a different take on the world than I do. He is much more brave, that’s for sure. But I remember talking to him about it, and he felt bad, of course, but then he added: “maybe it was their time to go.” How was this their time to go? They did not decide upon it, but some other asshole decided it for them.

There is really something scary that so much of our lives are dictated about other people’s actions. Accidents happen every day, and those are inevitable. But mass murders like this? It is not in any way, shape or form fair to have a life ended this way. Yes, before you comment, life is unfair but there is just something so fundamentally wrong when you have to go that way. And I do not think that is your time to go. That is someone else deciding that for you- your time to go is when you die of natural cause.

What do you think- would you accept the fact if something like this happened to you? Does it even matter in the end how you go or when (since it is after the fact?)

Either way, R.I.P. innocent victims. This world can be a cruel place.

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