I’ve been trying to come up with a “take” on this whole “Occupy Wall Street” thing, and I really haven’t been able to.
I get that people are upset at the economy, but I struggle to see how our nation’s economic problems are the responsibility of the richest 1 percent of our nation. Who arbitrarily decided that it was the top 1 percent and not the top 2 percent?!
That kind of thinking makes me insane. I really think it should be the top 2 percent and I’m not joining their movement until someone changes that!
But seriously, who decided that? No one really ever asks that. They just break down the fence and start following the herd and yelling whatever chant the guy/girl in front of them is yelling, and pretty soon we have a movement! “Hell no, we won’t go!”
“I want to make it on my own”
Here’s my issue: I’m not anywhere close to the top 1 percent – wish I was, because I come to work every day working hard to get there — but I mean, I’m a scorecard guy, and the top 1 percent seems like the winners and I hate losing.
Now, I could go around and see if someone would change the rules and give me a bunch of money from the top 1 percent, but that seems very, well, un-American. I would rather get there myself – pull up my bootstraps, batten down the hatches, rub some dirt on it, and all that grandfatherly advice type stuff. I want to make it on my own, and I work hard each and every day to try and make that happen.
If I didn’t have this job, right now, would I feel different? Don’t know about that because I’m not in that position.
I have been without a job, though. You want to know what I did? I worked 24 hours-a-day to get another one! I’ve had to take steps backward to move forward. I’ve also been down and had to pick myself up, and in all of those times, I never spent a minute thinking, “well, if only those rich bastards would pay more in taxes, I could get more unemployment, or maybe even a job or anything else.”
I’m responsible for me, not some rich person who I don’t even know.
I work in a career, and in a company, and every day we have to work. Every day I face the real possibility of losing income if we don’t keep working, taking care of our clients, getting new clients, and basically outworking our competition. Each morning I choose to get up, come to work and “occupy my cube” (I actually have an office, but I’ve had a cube, no big difference).
It’s not that I don’t support the “Occupy Wall Street” folks; it’s just that I don’t understand them.
This was originally published on Tim Sackett’s blog, The Tim Sackett Project.