...because the world cannot be saved, but you can stupidly waste a lot of time and money trying. Or end up dead like Kayla Mueller.
As just another naive American do-gooder, Kayla wanted nothing more than to travel the globe fighting genocide, AIDS, domestic abuse, work with people in Darfur, and make sure frogs swim in clean water. She belonged to every imaginable volunteer group, was interested in world affairs, and wrote to Congress “to push for a change in U.S. policy”. “Always compassionate and loving”, she went to India, Israel, Palestine, France, and Turkey “with a helping hand”. Predictably, her volunteer work and altruistic life came to a sudden end in Syria, where she was snatched and killed by the bad guys. Before she died, she was tortured and repeatedly raped by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the group leader. I will let you guess his religion; no, it was not Christianity or Judaism.
I remember the day when my younger daughter told us that she was planning to go to Kenya to teach. Instead writing a dozen desperate what-do-I-do letters to Dr. Phil, without any hesitation, I said this. “You are over eighteen and you can do what you want. Before you go, I want you to know that I will not pay ransom if you get kidnapped, or travel to that ****hole to retrieve your body if you get raped and murdered. Is that clear?”
She said yes and never mentioned Kenya again. Today, safe and happily married, she wouldn’t go for a walk alone around the block when it’s dark. Fifteen years ago, going to Africa would have been so much fun, but for her stupid and stubborn parents. Kayla, on the other hand, is dead now because nobody loved her enough to tell her that she was a suicidal idiot ready to throw her life away for nothing.
Your education and, later, your profession will be critical in your life as tickets to freedom. Your abuser will thrive knowing that you depend on him financially; he will feel powerful and entitled. Do you think that a rich woman would put up with a violent lowlife who would beat her, call her names and break her furniture?
To assure survival, we are born perfect egoists. Toddlers learn to say it’s mine before would you like some? When you are in your early twenties, the opposite happens; you want to give away everything to the homeless and charities, go to Africa and save the world. To be able to do it, you can graduate from any college with a degree in anything. The problem begins when this phase, like acne, passes and the harsh reality of daily life displaces everything else, including your desire to improve the world. This is when any degree from any college is not going to be good enough.
If you are still in high school, you should reconsider your desire to be altruistic and start concentrating on what is important in your life - you. Before you make your choices, call employment agencies or search on line to see what jobs are offered, and you will be shocked. Even the safe government jobs like teaching are hard to get, as many school districts are laying off their teachers by the hundreds.
What brought us to this unhappy situation is the manufacturing and well-paying service jobs leaving the country and the immigrants, both legal and illegal, pouring in to compete at the bottom. Here is a comment from AlexB2:
Estimated 7 million non-agricultural jobs are held by illegal aliens. This is why you and your adult kids can't find a job.
From a CNN.com post:
…the globalization of labor is what has killed the US middle class… Third world wage slaves have now become a global resource.
Whatever is left in the middle is being automated. Have you been to any major airport lately? Did you notice that, where there were ten airline employees taking your luggage and giving you your boarding pass, there are now two in case you need help operating that touch screen?
Do you know that 50 million Americans, who normally would work, do not? To make matters even worse, cities like Chicago and Detroit - thanks to the unions and the Democrats - are going over the fiscal cliff.
In today's job market, a typical run-of-the-mill diploma in liberal arts may be a good beginning but, by itself, is not enough. With close to 40% underemployment among the recent college graduates, competition for jobs is intense and, to be financially independent, you will need a graduate degree. A bachelor of anything other than perhaps engineering or finance just does not cut it anymore - unless you decide to be a teacher or a union thug in Chicago. If this is your choice, you don’t even need to go to college, and the money you will save by not attending you can use as bribes to get the job you want.
If you stop at the bachelor’s degree, you will be a minimum wage, no-benefits telemarketer. Another great way to mess up your life is to get a degree in Women Studies, or some other politically correct crap, so you can work at a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic as a receptionist.
If you are lucky to have a rich grandma and she wants to send you to Stanford to study Italian literature, take the hundred-sixty grand she offered and start a landscaping business. While it is true that your business may fail, going to Stanford to study Italian would be flushing money down the toilet for sure, unless waiting tables in a cozy Italian restaurant is your chosen career path. I chose Stanford and Italian only to make my point. I don’t even know if you can study Italian at Stanford.
As just another naive American do-gooder, Kayla wanted nothing more than to travel the globe fighting genocide, AIDS, domestic abuse, work with people in Darfur, and make sure frogs swim in clean water. She belonged to every imaginable volunteer group, was interested in world affairs, and wrote to Congress “to push for a change in U.S. policy”. “Always compassionate and loving”, she went to India, Israel, Palestine, France, and Turkey “with a helping hand”. Predictably, her volunteer work and altruistic life came to a sudden end in Syria, where she was snatched and killed by the bad guys. Before she died, she was tortured and repeatedly raped by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the group leader. I will let you guess his religion; no, it was not Christianity or Judaism.
I remember the day when my younger daughter told us that she was planning to go to Kenya to teach. Instead writing a dozen desperate what-do-I-do letters to Dr. Phil, without any hesitation, I said this. “You are over eighteen and you can do what you want. Before you go, I want you to know that I will not pay ransom if you get kidnapped, or travel to that ****hole to retrieve your body if you get raped and murdered. Is that clear?”
She said yes and never mentioned Kenya again. Today, safe and happily married, she wouldn’t go for a walk alone around the block when it’s dark. Fifteen years ago, going to Africa would have been so much fun, but for her stupid and stubborn parents. Kayla, on the other hand, is dead now because nobody loved her enough to tell her that she was a suicidal idiot ready to throw her life away for nothing.
Your education and, later, your profession will be critical in your life as tickets to freedom. Your abuser will thrive knowing that you depend on him financially; he will feel powerful and entitled. Do you think that a rich woman would put up with a violent lowlife who would beat her, call her names and break her furniture?
To assure survival, we are born perfect egoists. Toddlers learn to say it’s mine before would you like some? When you are in your early twenties, the opposite happens; you want to give away everything to the homeless and charities, go to Africa and save the world. To be able to do it, you can graduate from any college with a degree in anything. The problem begins when this phase, like acne, passes and the harsh reality of daily life displaces everything else, including your desire to improve the world. This is when any degree from any college is not going to be good enough.
If you are still in high school, you should reconsider your desire to be altruistic and start concentrating on what is important in your life - you. Before you make your choices, call employment agencies or search on line to see what jobs are offered, and you will be shocked. Even the safe government jobs like teaching are hard to get, as many school districts are laying off their teachers by the hundreds.
What brought us to this unhappy situation is the manufacturing and well-paying service jobs leaving the country and the immigrants, both legal and illegal, pouring in to compete at the bottom. Here is a comment from AlexB2:
Estimated 7 million non-agricultural jobs are held by illegal aliens. This is why you and your adult kids can't find a job.
From a CNN.com post:
…the globalization of labor is what has killed the US middle class… Third world wage slaves have now become a global resource.
Whatever is left in the middle is being automated. Have you been to any major airport lately? Did you notice that, where there were ten airline employees taking your luggage and giving you your boarding pass, there are now two in case you need help operating that touch screen?
Do you know that 50 million Americans, who normally would work, do not? To make matters even worse, cities like Chicago and Detroit - thanks to the unions and the Democrats - are going over the fiscal cliff.
In today's job market, a typical run-of-the-mill diploma in liberal arts may be a good beginning but, by itself, is not enough. With close to 40% underemployment among the recent college graduates, competition for jobs is intense and, to be financially independent, you will need a graduate degree. A bachelor of anything other than perhaps engineering or finance just does not cut it anymore - unless you decide to be a teacher or a union thug in Chicago. If this is your choice, you don’t even need to go to college, and the money you will save by not attending you can use as bribes to get the job you want.
If you stop at the bachelor’s degree, you will be a minimum wage, no-benefits telemarketer. Another great way to mess up your life is to get a degree in Women Studies, or some other politically correct crap, so you can work at a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic as a receptionist.
If you are lucky to have a rich grandma and she wants to send you to Stanford to study Italian literature, take the hundred-sixty grand she offered and start a landscaping business. While it is true that your business may fail, going to Stanford to study Italian would be flushing money down the toilet for sure, unless waiting tables in a cozy Italian restaurant is your chosen career path. I chose Stanford and Italian only to make my point. I don’t even know if you can study Italian at Stanford.
