I recently saw a clip of suggested ball tampering in Australian Cricket.   Neil Armstrong’s fiasco as he peddled to championship after championship is old news, and the ball tampering with The Patriots in our NFL didn’t go anywhere either.   Back a while there was also the scandal  of ‘stand-in’ test taking in some of our colleges and universities. The banking and real estate debauchery was another ‘prize’ for some, and I haven’t even touched on the investment schemes which have cost many investors their life savings.  Is this the  “Everyone-can-be-bought-for-the-right-price” or “Integrity-be-Damned”  or “Win-at-any-Cost” daredevil trip that is just too alluring and apparently never too steep for those tempting their very souls as they pull the plug on what I call at the very least “the principle of the thing?”

In my naivete’  I’ve come to recognize this is a bigger world in more than one view that I never considered much until now.  Is dishonesty and cheating so prevalent in the human experience that the human being of today is bored with doing something which rewards with self-fulfillment?  Is it the pervasive thought to “win at all cost?’ Has it come to “The Love of Money is the Root of all Evil” and it is proving to be so?

I live in a consumers’ world.   I’ve witnessed for years how gross product shrinks in size and/or quality and costs the same or more.  I live in the world of fixed income. I am forced to pay the price for items I need,  and I guess the manufacturers’ view is,  ‘my gross profit margin will not suffer  and I will stay in business… consumer be damned!’  (And not to forget, we, the ‘damned consumer’ are keeping up that profit margin by continuously buying their undergraded, overpriced product!)

I live in a world where people are clucking from every corner how to do this, or that, to accomplish this or that, to be this or that…the world of everybody-has-THE answer-to-ALL-THINGS-FOR-ALL-PEOPLE!

I now  can understand “Stop the world I want to get off!” or “I don’t want to play this game anymore!”  I don’t understand “I Quit!”  I do understand more than ever that idealist thinking and going back to square one, and getting pleasure out of the little things, and words and phrases like pride, humility, gratitude, integrity, and the heralding of times gone by, most probably fall on many deaf ears.  And, when I’m speaking, maybe I am throwing pearls to swine, to paraphrase another biblical reference.

I now conclude more than ever, I will be more my own counsel,  heed more my own advice,  guard more my little world steadfastly, and preserve it the best way I know how.  And I also conclude NOT to fall prey to those in the large numbers of  scam artists. This term isn’t just for the ‘artists’ who want to cheat the elderly and more vulnerable citizen.  I think the real SCAM ARTISTS are those whose GREED has taken them over to the point that their own happiness got thrown under the bus!  Their families have suffered for their exclusive AND ADDICTIVE attention to earning the almighty dollar and then having to EARN MORE AND MORE AND MORE.

Are we now a society that has fallen prey to itself?  The word “sacred” comes to mind.  Is there nothing sacred anymore?  And there’s another word, “sacrifice.”  A person can sacrifice the privilege of living life to its fullest, and shrivel up and die inside, while counting their ‘wins’ –  not realizing their ‘losses’ meant everything to their life itself…. what a long road back to square one.  I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.

Blessed Be…and to All Be Blessed.