by Jack
One of my favorite people, Ben Stein, was on TV this morning lamenting about the bankrupt American Airlines layoff. He was observing that 16,000 hard working and dedicated American employees will soon be losing their jobs and pensions. Many of them are too old to start a new career in this industry and most will be unable to find another job that will pay anywhere close to what they were making at AA. Then Stein pointed out with much irony, how some people come into great wealth… so easily! Take for instance the Face Book story and the guy who painted graffiti art for them on a few walls. He will be cashing in on $200M in stock options that he took in lieu of a cash payment. And then there are the secretaries and others at Face Book, all worth millions now because of stock options, and most are barely in their mid-twenties. Life is not fair, notes Stein.
Well, life is like a lottery and lotteries are never meant to be fair! Sometimes the most deserving get royally screwed while the village idiot is doled out a fortune to squander.
I don’t know who wrote this, but whoever it was summed up life like this, “Life is not always fair, it will have its ups and downs, and the good times and the bad. Life can be exciting and filled with joy, or life can be hard and filled with fright. Life can be filled with many feelings, the feelings could be confusing at times, and at other times be clear. Life will include many decisions, and some will be major, but most will be minor. The decisions made during your life will take you down many paths. The pathway of life you choose to take, will determine whether or not you will have a good or bad life. The decisions you make will carve your future and the decisions you make can either help you or hurt you.” But, then again this was written long before some fool with $50 worth of rattle cans and a modest talent for graffiti was paid $200M! lol
Yeah, life really does suck sometimes, but you better keep right on playing because you never know what’s around that next corner.
Excellent post Jack. Anyone who has lived a decade or two learns that life is not easy. We all know someone who has or had cancer, lost a child or spouse, or even a job or their home. Life doesnt always turn out to be what we planned for. But if we choose to take those lemons that are thrown at us a make something good and sweet from them we dont have to let them rot in a pile of stinking compost.
Everyone really does have a choice when they feel life hasnt been fair. Would it be fairer if all the bad things in life just happened to others? Now that doesnt sound fair to me.
So true Peggy. When I was a very young girl, I said to my mom “Why me” she responded exactly as you said “would it make you happy if this happened to your brother”? ( regarding a medical thing) Of course I said no, but it was a lesson learned, everytime I get on the famous “pity Pot” I see someone in a worse place.
Great comments Peggy. For most of us mortals it’s hard to take any consolation by knowing that many in the world are far worse off, it is still a good reality check. And it reminds us to take stock of what we have, not what we don’t.
Well, don’t get too fussed. This may be the IPO to which nobody comes … a pump and dump stock, if ever there was one. As Factbook is all hype, and doesn’t actually produce anything that anybody actually needs (do you ever click on the ads?), and if I were one of them secretaries, I’d sell quick.
I don’t use face book, I don’t like face book and I have never even noticed, much less bought anything because of a face book ad. If it was up to me I think face book would be worth about .10 cents.