Jenny told me not to complain about entitlements so much.

She said it was something old men did.

Shoot.

I talked yesterday about some folks who ripped off Wal-Mart with their limitless EBT cards (sounds like something Willie Wonka would make) and I guess the conversation leaked over into entitlements and people expecting to be taken care of.

“Expecting” is the part of it that baffles me.

I guess we’re all like that, though…the more we get, the more we expect.

We’re fine with the hot dog stand until we get used to the 4 star restaurant.

What’s that old saying?  “How you gonna keep ’em down on the farm….after they’ve seen Pareeeeee?”

I guess that everybody’s got a different row to hoe…everybody’s has their own life to live.

If living on the dole forever and ever is the way it goes down for you…so be it.

I don’t have to understand it, though.

So…I’m not an old man yet.  I don’t want to complain about entitlement programs.  I have too much going on in my life to worry about how somebody else is getting a free ride.

Enough said.

Went for my morning run a little later this morning….6 instead of 5.

Two dogs surprised me…barking their heads off, trying to be imposing…but I recognized the bark and when I called the one I knew by name they warmed up to me.

It’s a victory to take them from growling to wagging.  It’s a good thing not to get bitten.

Simple pleasures.

Sometimes, it seems like it might be hard work to find something to complain about.

Maybe that’s why talking about politics is so popular….it’s something outside of us that we don’t have to work hard at to find parts of it that are offensive.

Maybe that’s why old men complain about entitlements, too.

They just run out of juice…they don’t have the energy to do anything other than slide downhill…they can’t find it in themselves to concentrate on what’s going on in their own lives that’s still good.

That’s the beauty of running.  It’s hard not to be “in the moment” when I’m running up the big hill and gasping for air.

When I’m running, it’s just me.

Me in the weather, me in the darkness, me in the sunshine.

It’s just me and my thoughts.

And I don’t have time to work at finding the negative.

I don’t need to work at finding something outside of myself that’s not right.

Now the news media would make us think that it’s somehow our responsibility to worry about the fiscal cliff and the earthquake half the way around the globe.

They want us to take responsibility for everything, somehow.

All these people…this big world…there’s going to be something somewhere to worry about.  We can find it if we look…or if we turn on the news.

And if the conversation around the cracker barrel starts to wind down, we can always bring up the “unfairness of entitlements” again…and we’re off to the races.

There are a million and one things that “matter” that never should mean anything at all to us.

We’ve got our own fish to fry.