Everyone Is Entitled To My Opinion On Hard Times

by Big Paul Bear

Hard times, we all have experienced them, we talk about them, some complain and look to blame someone, others boast having survived them. Our childhood was so much tougher than our children have it, yet we all want our children to have a better life than we had. We worked harder than our children with all the modern tools available to them, from power tools to computers. Our weather was worse; it was colder with deeper snowfalls and more of them. We were concerned with the threat of atomic war and communism, the great red scare. We built bomb shelters, were told to duck and cover under our desk at school, and if the alarm were to sound, head home and hide in the dark with food stored in the pantry.

As time went on we found more reasons to be afraid, illegal drugs and those selling to those who use, creating a violent society. Child abuse, now included our own parents, and children are told to call the police and report abuse or wrong doing. Cost of living is out of control as the price of food, clothing, gasoline, housing, transportation continues to rise. Taxes go up and more are added, the cost of education is putting students in debt that they may never repay. Yet incomes don’t seem to increase evenly. Entertainment, just look at the cost of going to the movies, the amusement park, or cable TV. Yes hard times we love to talk about them, to brag that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, but, what do we do to change our hard times?

We are entering the eleventh month of Corona Virus/COVID 19 with social distancing, wear a mask mandates, debates and arguments over how it should be handled, who is to blame, how will it be cured? Hard times, just a part of life, something we have always had to deal with. No! The Garden of Eden, Utopia, Paradise, Adam and Eve had no stress, no hard times, they had food without planting or harvesting, water flowed for them to drink, to bathe, to swim. The sun warmed and the rains brought growth, hard times? Not here, until Eve listened to the serpent and ate the forbidden fruit and got Adam to eat it too.

They had paradise and yet they were talked into doing the one thing that they were told was forbidden. God cast them out, closed the Garden of Eden, and gave them freedom of choice. In short mankind had to provide; their own food, clothing, shelter, and build a world to live in and raise families.
Today the serpents we listen to are greed, hatred, deceit, and oppression, all human emotions that weaken the true human spirit. Now add our own lust to have more because we deserve it. What has happened to working for the things we have? Are we no longer responsible for ourselves, for our actions as well as their effect on our children and our world? The laws of gravity say “what goes up must come down” And yet we build machines that seem to defy gravity.

We do things every day that challenge the laws and tempt anarchy, anything to satisfy our own desires, so we put the blame for hard times on someone else and demand we be compensated and cared for. There may be compensations due in some cases, but what do we owe? How about identifying the true cause of our hard times, let’s take a good look at ourselves. Haven’t we sat back and allowed our society to be destroyed, our rights to religious freedom, education, monetary earnings and protection from monetary needs in our old age, and our rights to stand up for a great country that is a beacon of freedom that the rest of the world comes to. Haven’t we ignored the warnings, turned a blind eye, pretending that life was just changing for the better, taking for granted that our lives are fine we have cable.