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I’ll go to with the basics, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
But if you look at the popular rhetoric on social media and from several senior advocacy groups, you will see “we” deserve more, we earned it, we paid our dues. “We” being seniors, the elderly.
I don’t feel that way at all. I don’t want to see more resources diverted to those of us who were fortunate to achieve those age designations, especially at the expense of the younger generation, our children and grandchildren in many cases.
We had to deal with the vicissitudes of life, but so do younger people. We had a lifetime to make decisions, some good, some irresponsible most likely. If we were lower income all our lives, we are unlikely to be better off in retirement.
We had forty years or so to plan for retirement, to anticipate our needs and risks. Is it now fair to say we should not have to pay this tax or another or to expect extra income at the expense of others?
Why do we deserve a higher SS COLA than the formula determines when the trust is headed toward insolvency? Who will be paying to fix the SS system? It will be younger working people, not us.
Don’t misunderstand, I am not arguing against assisting those in need – there is much assistance available including tax relief in different forms, but that is different from a broad “seniors” designation.
Just getting old is not a new entitlement in my opinion.
We deserve what we directly earn. The rest is largesse and may be wealth transfer.
While “deserve” is a strong word, after thinking about your post overnight, I believe I do deserve equal treatment to younger candidates, in the unlikely event, I choose to apply for a job. Similarly, I deserve access to any financial or social programs designated for seniors, programs that are legally established, without facing judgment for using them.
The question then is why are such programs established in the first place unless they are purely need based?
The answer to that is above my retirement pay grade.
I agree Mark. I don’t know if I deserve to receive any social program money, e.g. social security, but I have paid the required taxes and expect to receive the legislatively established payments. I’m not sure how being more in need of the money makes you more “deserving” of it. If congress wants to change the payouts or make the system more progressive, they can change the laws and probably will (eventually).
For the record, I believe I have already received more from this life than I deserve.
I would not put self-funded Social Security in a category with social programs designed for those in economic need. SS was designed not to be such a program.
It is my BELIEF that just because we are alive Human Beings DESERVE NOTHING.
I realize that I am truly lucky to have been born a white male in the mid 1950’s.
I was blessed to ‘win’ the ovarian lottery. Except for some physical ailments I have been extremely fortunate in life.
I didn’t DESERVE any of it.
But I am very thankful for it.
Couldn’t agree with you more, Winston. It’s a blessing or a gift.
You won the geographic lottery as well, being born in a First World country. Our futures would have looked very different in the 1950s had we opened our eyes in Asia (especially South or Southeast) or central Africa.
Mike,
You are 100% correct!
Personally, I think I deserve more hair. 😉
I’m quite a fan of your Royals and proudly remind anyone who will listen “My boys are both bald like William and Harry due to Male Pattern Baldness inherited from their moms.” If anyone makes the mistake of asking what I’m talking about, they are cursed by hearing the FULL explanation 😂🧑🦲🧑🦲
A very close family friend has seven children who show the same pattern. The three girls all have gorgeous, thick ginger hair in a beautiful shade, while the four boys are experiencing varying degrees of hair loss depending on their age, the two oldest are basically bald at this point. Honestly, I think they’d look strange with hair now.
And an occasional cold beer, though I fully expect to pay for it myself.
How about a nice glass of dry red wine?
In a prior post, I have expressed my appreciation of a nice Cab or Bordeaux.
I second that—self-funded cold beer and more hair, definitely a winning one-two combination!
And now we are off in another direction🤪
And going in yet another, how’s the weather across the Delaware in NJ? I’m just across from Montague and the snow has momentarily stopped, but not long enough for me to consider shoveling . I think it’s 3-4” here at 2:30
Alright, alright—corner time for me. I’ll be over here being a model citizen, saying absolutely nothing, thinking pure thoughts. Scout’s honor. 🤐 …Can I at least hum quietly to myself?
I resemble that!
I blame it on my past fashion crime: the shoulder length shaggy perm I sported in the early 80s
Same here.
As a member of the bald(ing) population, I’d support that.
In Dennis Prager’s 1999 book Happiness is a Serious Problem: A human nature repair manual he advocates to not expect anything not 100% in your control.
As you drill down, you’ll eventually realize that nothing is completely within your control, thereby leading to the ideal: having no expectations. When one has no expectations, one becomes grateful for most things. Prager argues that gratitude is the key to happiness.
Believing you’re entitled to something is a recipe for unhappiness.
In other words: have preferences about your hairline, but don’t let them define your happiness.
LOL. Good point. Unfortunately, I knew I would go bald, but I thought I’d handle it better. I may write a post about it.
Please do. When my oldest first saw a dermatologist about his severe acne around age 17, he said, “I see you looking at my receding hairline and wondering if you should mention some treatment. Dr. Patrick, I’m okay with going bald at a young age, just please help with the acne so I can get a date.” The other son (divorced, living overseas) was recently accused by a potential date of having a wife back in America as per his online photos. It was me. 😒
I could go for that too.