My daughter got behind in her school work in December. What with the holidays in November, she thought she’d have plenty of time to catch up over Christmas.  But as things went, with the frozen pipes and tree branches covered in ice snapping limbs and cutting off our power, then our laptop dying…she didn’t get to her work.

But she’s a trooper and put her ‘nose to the grindstone’. Over the past couple of weeks, she’s been doing one week’s worth of work in each of her classes per day, working between 10-12 hours a day, while I have concentrated all my attention on doing whatever I can to help her.

Her dad is ‘waiting in the wings’ for her to get finished. You see, he is waiting for me to help him with his homework, too. He’s got a giant bid to prepare for a job he is getting ready to start.

And my son in college, recently sent me an email, reminding me that it is time again to fill out his FAFSA for his student grants. It’s nice to be reminded but this is not something that needs to be done right *now*. It goes on my list after doing our taxes for this year.

And I start doing that the 1st of next month. It usually takes me a couple of days, as the first thing I do is total all our receipts for the year. I’ve got bags of them. One thing for sure, it’s a lot quicker to do the taxes now that there are software programs to make my job easier.

The first thing I used to do at this time of year is study all the new tax codes. You see, I’ve been in charge of doing my family’s taxes are far back as I can remember: Schedule A, Schedule B, Schedule C, Schedule D, you name it and I’ve filed it.

My dad raised me to have a sense for business, to be a Steward of family Values.

Everyday if I bother to even look at TV, there’s a story about another *smuck* who has lost all their money. Now a lot of us may bristle over my use of the term *smuck* but that really is too “bad”. For the way I m seeing it, is that a lot of us simply didn’t do our ~homework~ when it came to investing our resources.

The stock market has never been a “sure” thing. Wise and savvy investors have always studied a stock, pouring over financial statements in order to determine a company’s worth and profitability. It’s the responsible thing to do, that is. And what we’re looking at now, is simply the result of not being responsible. Lots of people desired to gain without doing any ~homework~.

When even my daughter understands that she can’t expect to get an “A” or a “B” in any subject, if she doesn’t do any ~homework~.

I find it absurd so many of us expect our governments to come up with some magic wand that will somehow restore all the ‘wealth’ we lost through speculation. Gee, if that works, we’ll be lined up at the casinos next, looking for someone to insure our losses there.

How about we start being Responsible and Accountable for our choices and our decision making? Like the decision to invest in stocks? Like the decision to trust in those who had no substance of character? Like the decision to even listen to those of us who have no substance of character?

If we ever expect our governments to have ethics and integrity, it has to start with us, first. If we ever expect our governments to be Accountable and Responsible, we have to be Accountable and Responsible ourselves. For our OWN choices.

What’s going on is not Liberty; it is not about Freedom. For with Liberty and Freedom comes Responsibility and Accountability for our choices. It’s about License. The license to choose as we please and blame something or someone else when our choices turn out to be foolish ones.

I guide to cease our crying over spilt milk. However much money has disappeared, don’t count on getting it back. Instead, learn how to make due with less. For the end result will be to discover and realize how much less we really need in order to be happy and content.

Our Economy based on credit consumption is OVER. It’s a proverbial dead horse. So spending any more money and time shoeing this dead horse, is simply going to increase our losses and retard our recovery.

It’s time we started doing our ~homework~. It’s time we were PRODUCTIVE at home and in our communities. Let us realize that whatever sense of security we imagined we had, it was all an illusion, insulating us from realizing we are members of our human race.

For there are a lot of people throughout our world who NEVER had such opportunities of investing and NEVER dreamed of having enough wealth to feel secure. It is not a “Right”. Nor are any of us “entitled” to it.

Once we cease our whining and complaints about being victims of deceivers, THEN we can start on our road to recovery. For the only ones we have deceived, have been ourselves.

I’m writing this post to give us a “head’s up”. I am currently working on another project, as well as overseeing my daughter’s education as we head into finals. I’m not going to mince my words, nor tiptoe around even trying to be nice about it.

There is an attitude that is prevalent that is not serving Humanity one bit. I’ll call it our attitude of being emotional spoiled brats and wimps.

It’s the attitude expressed by these statements:

“I don’t want to see anything unpleasant.”
“I don’t want to hear anything unpleasant.”
“I don’t want to experience anything unpleasant.”

It’s this attitude of rejection and denial that has been selling itself as supposedly ’spiritual’, when it couldn’t be farther from it.

Each of the attitudes expresses a LACK, a DEFICIT of inner strength and of Spiritual Integration. And our hope at this time, does not lie in being BIG BABIES.

I have HAD IT, with the selling of this attitude being related to ANYTHING Spiritual and those of us who have been selling this idea, and personally profiting off the ignorance of others, are going down. Realities wiped out unless changed and transformed.

It is not wise at this time to look to outer authorities to solve our problems. As all our problems at this time are a result and consequence of our LACK in self discipline.

I realize there a many of us who think of discipline as “unpleasant” and those of us who believe this, are going to discover that the consequences of lacking it, are far more unpleasant then discipline itself.

It is not a ‘good’ time to be a sheep.