Our Protectors (and How Our Society is Sick)

It’s Christmas Eve. I’ve come down with a cold and am basically miserable. I don’t feel much like celebrating anything as it is.

On Friday night into Saturday morning, we had a windy storm blow through. It knocked a tree into the powerlines across the street from our house. I remember sipping my coffee and wondering why there were firetrucks on the street. Then I saw it:

A tree leaning on the power lines in front of our house. This is just before massive fireballs and breaking wires!
A tree leaning on the power lines in front of our house. The tree was burning, as evidenced by all the smoke. This is just before massive fireballs and breaking wires!

Very soon after I took this photo (from my front window, mind you), the thing went up in a huge fireball. Well, actually three fireballs, until the lines broke. Then we left to camp at some friends’ house to wait for the electric to come back on.

I’m grateful for our firemen who were there that morning. I have to say that. It seemed trivial at the time, but I feel it now, very strongly. I thanked a firefighter as we left, just from basic respect for doing what he most likely considers ‘just his job.’ I was glad he was there. I knew our home would be fine.

This morning, this was on the local news:

Something is wrong with this headline.

How could this be? Firefighters doing nothing more than what they consider their job, shot and killed in the line of duty. Two more in the hospital. And Webster is only two towns over! This is in my back yard!

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsWhat is wrong with our society? How can this happen? Why did someone feel that they needed to shoot at our protectors?

<rant>

This is my rant. This is my opinion. I know that this is a more complicated problem than what I present here, but as this falls on the heels of the CT shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, and all the other obscene murders that have happened of late, I submit this.

Our society is sick. It is sick because we have decided that it is more important that everyone should get a prize just for trying, so that they feel good about themselves. Fundamentally, it’s great to encourage people to be happy in their own skin, but we’ve done a disservice by always providing prizes for participation and always trying to make sure ‘everyone wins.’

In the real world, not everyone wins. People fail. Things go wrong. People leave the school systems feeling good because they’ve always been given positive reinforcement after they falter, then when real failure comes (can’t find a job, lose your job, can’t afford the car you want), they don’t know how to cope. We don’t teach people how to accept failure and move on, because we protect our children from failure. So when real life happens, complete with failure, they go on a rampage.

Most people do figure out the difference between real-life and the A-for-effort they always got in school, and learn how to deal with failure. Yet still, most people are left with a sense of entitlement. “I deserve that fancy car!” It doesn’t help that most advertizing plays on this, telling people that they deserve the best. Then folks go out, spend money they don’t have, and have problems. They fail. And then…

Our society is sick. We are not entitled to things just because we put in a little effort, or have lived X-amount of years. And failure is a part of life that we need to learn to cope with. Success isn’t granted. It’s not a participation sticker. You’ve got to work, and learn, and FAIL once in a while.

I’m not saying that I don’t suffer from this sense of entitlement just like everyone else. I’m sure I do. We’re an entirely spoiled society. We have a lot of our basic needs provided. We don’t know just how good we’ve got it (until the day the power goes out and you realize that the house is going to get very cold and you don’t know what to do about it!)

Accept failure, folks. Learn from it. Rise above it. DON’T BLAME OTHERS FOR IT! Get over yourself and move on.

</rant>

Thanks for listening. I apologize for any typos – I wrote this in a hurry. I apologize for any offense as well. I recognize that 1) there are always exceptions and 2) broad sweeping generalizations tend not to apply equally to everyone. Let’s all try to enjoy this celebratory time of year, no matter how you choose to do so.

********Added Christmas day:

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Or, support your local fire department. These people serve us. Let’s give a little back…

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Published by paleololigo

Scientist (Paleontology, Geochemistry, Geology); Writer (Speculative and Science Fiction, plus technical and non-technical Science); Mom to great boy on the Autism spectrum; possessor of too many hobbies.

1 Comment

  1. Dave H's avatar Dave H says:
    December 24, 2012 at 2:04 pm

    I share your frustration Penny. You’re right, the world is a sick place and we’re fascinated by stories of massive failure the way moths are fascinated by flame. It seems like the failures have set out to proves which one of them can fail the biggest, and take the most people down with them.

    My daughter knew one of the men killed by the failure in Webster this morning. He used to come into the restaurant where she worked. She’s known volunteer firefighters most of her life, dated a few and is married to one now. She knows, like they know, that it’s a dangerous but necessary job and that they might not come back from a call one day. But they go anyway, because they know they’re needed. But to have someone with that kind of courage, that spirit of giving and service, removed from this world by some waste of oxygen failure disgusts me no end.

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