So often I hear people complain they didn't get accolades or awards. Perhaps they didn't get them because they don't deserve them. Do they ever stop to consider that they might have a flaw?
Or perhaps you're frustrated that people at work who are slugs remain slugs while you get crapped on - but didn't you complain about this from the beginning; that the job was about as healthy for your sense of well being as caramel corn ice cream on top of waffles is for a diabetic.
It's like dating a controlling, cheating, mentally abusive rat; you knew in your gut who this person was, but with YOU, with YOUR LOVE, you would cure him of his wicked ways. It's never going to happen. Benn there. Done that. Escaped.
Sometimes being a good person, or trying to do the right thing, sometimes, it doesn't come with raise, or a promotion or a plaque.
Every time I feel defeated or wonder why I bother; I remember this from Rose Wilder Lane; to sum it up in case you have to get back to your Instagram and Snapchat, the sum of it is: No one knew who risked his life, and the life of his family in order to stand up against the British as they made their way to Boston. This passage just about sums it up:
Many people have gone before us, many nameless, faceless, people. They have risked life, love, money - to do the right thing. We may not always get recognized, and probably, most of us won't. But don't go through life expecting everything to work out, especially if you are not willing to take a hard look at who you are, and won't venture out of your comfort zone.
And when all else fails: DILLY DILLY!
From THE DISCOVERY
OF FREEDOM: Man's Struggle Against Authority by Rose Wilder Lane, daughter of,
and secretary to, Laura Ingalls Wilder,
"One man
began that war. And who knows his name?
"He was a
farmer, asleep in his bed, when someone pounded on his door and shouted in the
night, 'The troops are coming!'
"What could
he do against the King's troops? One
man. If he had been the King, that would
have been different; then he could have done great things. Then he could have set everything to rights,
he could have made everyone good and prosperous and happy, he could have
changed the course of history. But he
was not a King, not a Royal Governor, not a rich man, not even prosperous, not
important at all, not even known outside the neighborhood. What could he do? What was the use of his trying to do
anything? One man, even a few men, can
not stand against the King's troops. He
had a wife and children to think of; what would become of them, if he acted
like a fool?
"Most men
had better sense; most men knew they could do nothing and they stayed in bed,
that night in Lexington. But one man got
up. He put on his clothes and took his
gun and went out to meet the King's troops.
He was one man who did not consent to a control which he knew did not
exist.
"The fight
on the road to Lexington did not defeat the British troops. What that man did was to fire a shot heard
around the world, and still heard...
"That shot
was the first sound of a common man's voice that the Old World ever heard. For the first time in all history, an
individual spoke, an ordinary man, unknown, unimportant, disregarded, without
rank, without power, without influence.
"Not acting
under orders, not led, but standing on his own feet, acting from his own will,
responsible, self-controlling, he fired on the King's troops. He defied a world-empire.
"The sound of
that shot said: Government has no power but force; it can not control any man.
"No one knows
who began the American Revolution. Only
his neighbors ever knew him, and no one now remembers any of them. He was an
unknown man, an individual, the only force that can ever defend
freedom."
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