Shouldering the Burden

There are some people who talk about having to shoulder the burden of those confounded Mexicans who keep jumping the border into our beloved country.  Then there's Fergie who will spend $40,000 in a few hours at a Calvin Klein store, which is more money than most people make in a year.  Nuh-uh, nuh-uh, you say, I make more than that.  Well, good for you.  But the fact of the matter is that 1% of the people possess 90% of the wealth.  Now, I'm no math wiz, no Will Hunting, if you will, but I think I can pretty fairly say that is an inexcusably uneven distribution.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think people should be required by law or forcibly compelled to share the wealth.  I just think that people should be nice and do it of their own free will.  The problem is that lots of people, too many, don't feel this way and so we have people starving right around the corner from people like me who is sitting around on her laptop with a full belly and the cable tv running for background noise.  I don't have much.  I live at my mom's house.  I'm on food stamps.  I'm unemployed.  But I have more than many thousands and millions of people around the country and around the world.  I have food.  I have clothes (old and second-hand, but still looking good).  I have a car.  I have the means to provide for my daughter.  Not fancy stuff, but what I need and enough so that sometimes I can also have what I want- the ability to buy my friends birthday presents, a book for myself or some ice cream, an outfit for Mimi.  Even with my modest means, I feel the need to help out others where I can.  One of the main reasons I want a decent job is that I want the ability to donate to charity.  I want others to have what they need and maybe even some of the things that they want.  I don't see what's so bad about forgoing some of the extravagances that we as Americans are used to so that people like my Grandma don't have to make a choice between medications and food.  I don't see why single people need to live in 4,000 or 5,000 or 10,000 sq. foot houses when there are families of 5 are living in 1 bedroom apartments.  And it's not because they're lazy or because they deserve it.  It's because many people have much more than they need or deserve.  It's shameful.  We're all in this together and we should stop pretending that it's every man for himself.  Because it's not.  We owe it to ourselves and to each other to give a little, just a little.  I don't mind.  I like it.  

However, in the end some people just don't feel that way and that's their right.  That just means people like me are going to have to work a little harder to help others and help themselves.  I can't change the core of someone's spirit, I can't change the manner of their heart.  And while I do feel we're all responsible for caring for and helping each other, at the very end of it all every man will stand accountable for his heart and his heart alone.