How Much Are You Worth, Anyway?

It has been pointed out to me quite frequently over the past 2 months (by Boyfriend Scott, an Iowa native) that I have spent my whole life living in a tiny corner of the world which, though true, has never really occurred to me so much.  I’ve been surrounded by the same street names, the same antique stores, and the same parks and sidewalks the whole time I have been on this planet.  I know only what I have seen, and I suppose I haven’t seen much.  I’ve been sheltered, and to be honest, I still pretty much live like a teenager.  So, in that way, perhaps it makes a little bit of sense that I am still always surprised by the depth of pure disgusting to which people can sink.

Now, I’m just going to throw this quick question out: When you imagine a struggling family packing their whole lives away in to boxes and having to leave perhaps the only home they’ve ever known because the bank has taken it away from them, is your first instinct to laugh? It really shouldn’t be, and you want to know why? Because, hi there… it’s not actually funny.  Now, the cynics in us may want to rail away and exclaim, “well, they shouldn’t have bought a house that they knew they couldn’t afford!”.  Which, all right, wouldn’t be a completely unfair assessment. There is a level of irresponsibility involved when it comes to people trying to have something for which their budget will not allow.  It’s kind of the law; you can’t have what you can’t pay for.  Unfortunately, there is a very human face to this problem.  Not to mention its variable nature, wherein sometimes unforeseeable things happen (like, say, a homeowner losing his/her job) and a once payable molehill becomes an overwhelmingly daunting bill mountain.  We can’t really blame these people, can we? And in situations where we can blame, who are we to judge or laugh?

Steven J. Baum law firm, can I admonish thee enough?

There are certain professions of which I am convinced that the desensitization of the people working within those fields becomes necessary.  Healthcare, for instance.  Crime scene investigators, for another.  These men and women need to get past various emotions that most of us have the luxury of being able to feel, because if they didn’t… these emotions might break them down.  I can understand a doctor trying to dismiss a death on their table, consoling themselves with the idea that they’ve saved countless others… but lawyers? Lawyers making light of people losing their homes?  This doesn’t actually make much sense.  People don’t need to be desensitized to that, and we certainly don’t need to make fun of it.

Which is exactly what Steven J. Baum and company did at their cute little halloween party.  The employees thought it would be great fun to dress up as homeless people… as in,  people who had lost their homes. Not only is that not funny, but it’s terribly cavalier if not almost a little sadistic.  I’m fairly certain that “kicking people while they’re down” isn’t actually in the dictionary, but if it were – there might be a picture of this party next to the entry.

Which, anyway, brings me to my point.  It seems like we’re living in a society where simple human decency has become null and void.  We don’t need to be decent to people anymore, guys, because apparently it’s not cost effective.  It won’t make you any money.  The important thing, now, is to learn how to be as inconsiderate and cold hearted as we can be… otherwise, we’ll fall victim to those who have already learned.  Think I’m joking? Maybe we should talk to the guys over at that airline who spent money on research to find out if it’d be more expensive to fix a defect on their planes, or pay out to the families of the victims if something were to go wrong. For the record, they fixed the defect. Because their research showed it would be cheaper.

Scary, isn’t it? Our lives are in the hands of people, every single day, who don’t look at us as human beings… they looks at us as numbers and bottom lines.  What’s a couple laughs over kicking someone out of their house when it got you that huge paycheck, anyway? Nothing. Just like voting one right away is nothing.

It’s always nothing until it’s something.

Which makes sense, don’t you think?