As I said in my last post, I am concerned with the sense of entitlement that we Americans have come to expect. In the ongoing debate in Washington on the "fiscal cliff" there is a side debate over whether "entitlements" should be cut. The fact that "entitlements'' now make up a large portion of the federal budget is a travesty. Many of these were originally started as a safety net, to augment a person's ability to retire or to pay medical bills, or to tide them over between jobs, not to be their ongoing primary source of income or subsistence. People should expect the government to be their long term source of support, unless they are working for a governmental entity.
They should be able to use government support to enable themselves to get training or to support them while they actively seek a job, but it should only be for a finite time. Sometimes a person might have to take a job that isn't their ideal job, but gives them a chance to continue searching for that ideal job. Being not happy with your current situation should give you impetus to improve, not to whine or complain about how you aren't being treated fairly. Again, the Declaration of Independence says we should have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It doesn't say we will always be happy, and in a backhanded, way says, we might never be happy, just that we should have the ability to pursue happiness. My fear is that a whole generation of Americans now look to the government for that happiness. They feel they are entitled to all of their wants and needs being provided for by the government, with little if any pursuit or labor on their part.
This attitude of entitlement is not what made this country great. Most of our ancestors came to this country as immigrants, They may not have known the language or the customs, but they found jobs, sometimes menial sometimes not in the area that they had training for, but they took them and worked to make them selves better. There was a work ethic. They didn't expect and in many cases, didn't want to take hand outs from the government or anyone else. They had pride and would rather do without at the time than to take a hand out. And many of them prospered. The may not have gotten financially rich over their lifetime, but they were able to provide for their families and had a sense of pride and accomplishment as they looked back on their life. They built this country from the ground up. Many immigrants today, whether legal or illegal, are doing the same thing. They come to America because they see it as the one place that will allow them to better themselves and their families. Many work at jobs that "real Americans" won't take because they are too menial or below our status. Maybe its about time we look at our status and understand that sometimes we have to lower our expectations in order to succeed in the long run. In order to climb the ladder, we sometimes have to start at the bottom, and not half way up.
I have changed careers three times in my lifetime. I decided as a teenager I wanted to be in radio. I went to one of the best colleges in the nation for that discipline and graduated with my baccalaureate degree in 31/2 years while working full time at a local radio station. After about twelve years, I came to the conclusion that this wasn't the line of work that was going to be my life's career. I didn't like the way the news business was evolving and was having a hard time finding a position that would support my self and my growing family. After looking for a new position for about a year, I made a switch to food service management and spent a number of years in it. I started to see this attitude of entitlement in that field, especially among a lot of the younger people we were employing. Again, I decided this wasn't a good long term fit for me, and I spent a couple of years trying various self employment routes before settling into my third career path - transportation and logistics. In my current position as operations manager for a local trucking company/ 3PL/ transportation broker, we use independent contractors / owner-operators almost exclusively. I am amazed at the lack of work ethic in many of these drivers. In simple terms, if they don't work, they don't make money. We will offer runs to them and if the runs don't pay top dollar, they have all kinds of excuses as to why they won't do them. Unfortunately in this economy, very few runs are "gravy" runs, but all can make the drivers some money after expenses. But many would rather sit and make nothing rather than work and make something. They don't understand that their truck costs them money everyday ( payment, insurance, etc) whether they are running or not, so an idle day actually costs them money rather than making enough to pay their expenses and some in their pocket. True, many are IC's / owner/operators because they want the freedom to determine their own schedules, etc., but then they call complaining that they aren't making any money, mostly because they have turned down a lot more jobs than they are taken. What's the old saying..a bird int he hand is worth two in the bush.
If you are on one of the government's "entitlement " programs, I'll admit, right now is not a great time to be looking for work, but there are jobs out there, just look in the newspaper or on-line or any number of places. It might not be the ideal job you are searching for, but there are jobs out there. Or take a chance and start and strike out on your own. Not every new business takes a lot of money to start, and yes it might to take some work to get it up and going, but the satisfaction of succeeding will more outweigh the sacrifices you invest in making it a success. Remember, you have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and the pursuit is the hardest part. .
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