Decisioning

Believe it or not, I’m still around. Frankly after the delay since my last post, I’m surprised anyone still stops by, thanks. OK a few personal remarks, to try to explain for the absence and sort out where to go from here. Mom’s breast cancer returned, and it came back mean, which – well, I will leave off the details and just say she went in for surgery last Tuesday, and she’s home now recuperating, which is another way of saying she feels tired and woozy and has noticed that there is absolutely nothing on TV she wants to see. But, all things considered not a bad situation. The family came together for obvious reasons, and everyone has packed up and gone back home except for my brother who lives there anyway.

The other thing which ate up so much time, besides my job and trying to be a good husband and father that is, is that I am finishing up the Spring semester at UHV. I turned in a final case for Managerial Economics, a term paper for Information Systems, a Powerpoint presentation for the IS paper, and I took my Economics final, which was pretty heavy in Quant. material, being a hands-on course in things like determining optimal production and pricing for a company or deriving an appropriate costing solution for product development, real micro-economics stuff. I got lucky though; I was nowhere near done with my Finance term paper this week past because of spending so much time at the hospital, but apparently everyone else had the same problem, so the professor of my Finance class pushed back both the Final exam and the term paper due date to this coming weekend instead. The IS course has a take-home final, which makes it sound easier than it is, but at least I can work at my own pace. That is, of course, providing I keep a diligent pace. This also means that my posting is likely to be sporadic this week, as well, but I will try to improve on last week.

That brings me, roundabout, to today’s topic. For all the hoo-dah about how important it is to elect the right leader who will somehow make all the right moves and make everything as it should be (lemme give you a hint – that’s not going to happen, even if [x] your favorite candidate [x] were to win in every election) Real Life makes you do a lot things yourself. It’s up to you who you choose to be, how you live your life and with whom, what you let bother you and what you make sure you always do, and what you never do. It’s up to you what kind of credibility you establish, what kind of work ethic you use to kick yourself out of bed and into gear every day, what you do about pain and loss, what you do about ego and hypocrisy, all of that. I see the news try to tell folks it’s not their fault they bought a house they knew they couldn’t afford, that if someone else gets rich that must somehow mean you got cheated, that Society – especially Hollywood – knows better than your family about honor and morality. Whether you believe that or not is your lookout, but in the end you make the decisions, and whatever comes of it is your baggage. You won’t get “fair”, that does not exist and it won’t do you any good to whine about it. We live in a world with better civil rights, a cleaner environment, more responsible government, and higher living standards than ever before in History. Someone will always be better off than you, but that does not make them wrong for doing well, and there will always be someone worse off than you, but that is no cause for you to feel guilty about it, unless you personally and deliberately caused their loss. In any case, it’s not a race, we all die sooner or later and if you think it’s about class justice or righting some perceived slight, you’re on your way to filling up your plate with spite and bitterness when you could have joy and hope.

Make good decisions. From where I sit, those are the ones which care about people and don’t aim to bring someone, anyone, down out of envy or pique. Instead, learn, think, then build on those things that you will always be glad you did.

[steps down from soapbox]