You, You, You, and Who?

All this talk of gun regulation, legalizing marijuana, drug testing for welfare, and whatever other issue whereby someone is wearing a placard about their rights – civil or otherwise – is exhausting. Frankly, I think we should be concerning ourselves with a bigger problem: Reality television.

This ridiculous phenomenon has given one entire generation a hugely inflated sense of self-entitlement, while making another so narcissistic that they’re incapable of the tiniest act of kindness without publicly announcing it in an effort to gain congratulations and, I assume, a glimpse of their 15 minutes of fame.

Which leads me to...

Speaking of vain, can someone please tell me what this whole "birthday MONTH" is about? As I understand it, there are grown adults who've decided that instead of one day of cake and candles, they're deserving of a month's worth. I was super puzzled by this, until one of the voices in my head posed this question:

"I wonder if this was the actual precursor to people using their birthday as a way to garner both self-indulgent admiration and gifts?"

Two true stories:
I know this girl who publicly announced that for her birthday she’s going to roam around town performing random acts of kindness, then document them all on FaceBook.

*blink*
*blink*

Because... she wants us to know how awesome she is?

Then there's the self-pronounced “I have so much money that you can't buy me anything, so you should totally admire my grand idea” birthday girl who asked for cash gifts so that she can give it to a person of her choosing "who has sooooooooo much less me.” Here's a thought. How about you use some of that money to learn how to hear yourself the way everyone else does, then quietly go about the business of helping others?

In a weirdly serendipitous coincidence, the past two weeks or so I’ve had probably a half-dozen people say to me, “I didn’t know that about you.” Yeah... that's because unless you ask, I'm not going to talk about myself, or pat myself on the back. I grew up believing that's incredibly poor form, and like talking about money – it just isn’t done.

Having said that, listen up, People!

I’m not poor - monetarily speaking, anyway. I make a significantly-well-above-average salary, and though most of it goes out as quickly as it comes in to support my stupid and apparently neverending house renovation, I still manage to regularly scrape together a little something to send to organizations who give a voice to those without one.

You want to "be someone?" Adopt an animal. You can't help but to become the person your pet believes you are.


(pictured: Fredo Guiseppe)






The following is a short list of animal-related orgs whose administrative overhead is low and whose need for donations (cash or otherwise) is always high:

Your local SPCA (Google it!)
Your local no-kill shelters
www.theanimalrescuesite.com/
www.hendrickboards.com
http://www.chenoamanor.org/

Feel free to leave your favorite in the Comments below.