No Respect

Rodney Dangerfield isn't the only person who gets no respect! Do you ever have one of those days where you think to yourself "gouging myself in the eye would be less painful than listening to this?" I have a lot of days like that!

I would start with a preface that we live in a democracy. Because of this we have many freedoms. We get to choose where to live, what religion to practice (or not practice), who will be the next president or run in any public office. We take for granite the very structure of this system when we become so caught up in our own greed and personal gain. We think everything in life is a right, not a privilege and other people should always respect us no matter how ignorant, rude or immature we may act.

What is getting me on this soap box? Teenagers! I work at a "crisis center" for troubled youth. This has seriously discouraged me from ever having children of my own. If 8 hours makes me want to gouge my eye out, what would 18 years do? These kids take on the victim side of life, when each one of them has a chance to be a survivor. Yes life is hard. Really bad things have happened. But life is hard for everyone, some things by choice, others out of our control. Just because you go to college doesn't mean you will get a great job. Just because you love someone doesn't mean relationships will work out and just because you are 17 doesn't mean you can blast the F-bomb in my ear and think I am going to take it.

It is not what happens to us in life that matters, it is how we respond to the unexpected, the unfair and disappointment that make us respectable (or not)! Living rules and laws don't make us weak, strange, weird or eccentric. It is the very thing that gives us freedom. Mock me if you will but let me give you some examples:
1. I do not break the law, therefore I do not have excessive fines to pay
2. I am not promiscuous, therefore I do not have an STD (statistics show 1 in 4 women have an STD, I BEAT THE ODDS!)
3. I haven't experimented with drugs (unless drinking diet coke is a drug!), therefore I am not addicted, I do not have to fight, steal or manipulate for something with a short term effect.
4. I try not to swear (not to say when I wreck on my bike the "s" word doesn't fly out), therefore I do not have to watch my tongue based on my surroundings
5. I do not steal of lie. I barely have enough money to pay the rent, I can't afford and Ipod (the only music I hear is the song I am singing), but I have nothing to hide, I have a clean conscience.
6. I know how to say please, thank you and to just shut up when ideals are mentioned that I do not agree with and I know I can not change. Nothing is solved with someone who argues and uneducated point!

Some of you may think I don't know anything, I am just a lame observer. Well come to find out I have had a lot of experiences in life. For instance, I worked very hard on passing a ban to stop smoking in a small Wyoming town. I have been around many people who hate my very being for taking away their "right" to smoke. Smoking is not a right, it is a privilege. I have the right to breath clean air and when your privilege takes away my right, I have a problem. When one person smokes the whole room smokes. When a parent smokes a child smokes. Your cigarette butts thrown in the city drain system, we all drink carcinogens. Often the innocent by standards are the very ones who die from lung cancer, leukemia and heart disease.

So for you out there that say kids have the right to listen to any music they want no matter the lyrics, or watch whatever show they want as long as it is PG-13, to you I say, it is not a right it is a privilege. If "you are what you eat", then aren't you what you watch, what you listen to and how you treat others? Because I choose to go to school again and try for another education, because I give back to my community with service or practice a religion that gives me values does not give a 17 year old (or anyone) the right to swear in my face, degrade my values or shrink me to something less. That is a privilege you have not earned and never will earn.

So can't a girl get a little respect?! Respect for becoming a survivor in a world that is unfair, for taking crap all day long from people and knowing inside I am better, stronger and more than that. Because I work hard I will not get things handed to me on a silver platter, nor do I expect it. Class will not come easy, grades won't always be A's, the pipes in my house won't always work and disagreements will still arise. Respect me or not I respect myself enough to know that shoving things in peoples faces that they choose not to have in their life will not bring them down, but will only make them fight harder, live stronger and give thanks for the blessing they have from being an upright citizen in a blessed, hard worked for democracy!