Why So Angry? Oh, You're A Youngish American.

There are days when I feel a lot like Moses.  I've yet to part any seas, or turn any staffs into snakes (uh...), or talk to enflamed shrubbery, but I get Moses.  He never saw the promised land.  He had all these covenants of grandeur, and yet he wandered around like a Gypsy, eating Saltine crackers, with a bunch of whiners.

He was grounded in negativity.

And lately, I've let the insecurity of my future affect my personality. The teaching industry is currently bombarded with negativity, and my workplace is filled with uncertainty and changes. Rarely, if ever, are any of our accomplishments in the classroom validated or celebrated. We, like many Americans, are stressed out and tired.  I feel, sometimes, like I've been wandering for days in a hot desert, and the only concession stand is selling hot cocoa.  "Squirt... please... PBR... please... hell, I'd take flavorless water... anything but hot cocoa..."

You like my latest non-photoshoped image?  I think I missed my calling.  

All this negativity has affected my behavior and my writing, and to my loyal readers, I'm sorry.  I didn't mean to let my last few blogs get all vomitous. I didn't mean to become Lewis Black.  I don't want to become Lewis Black. Life, for the most part, is pretty awesome. Even with allergies, and lay-offs, and sickness, and financial clouds, and being overworked, and stress settling like a tumor in my shoulders...even with all this, life is still beautiful.

I hope Mr. Black has
bought a personal island
by now.  Hard to be angry on
your own island.  

How often do you think the Israelites stopped to smell the fig trees?  "Freedom sucks, Moses.  When we were slaves we at least ate meat...now this carbohydrate substance we have to collect off the desert floor? Meh. Let me die a slave."

Many days I feel like I'm surrounded by metaphorical Jews (I'm 1/32nd Hebrew, so I can say that). People complaining about the future, people complaining about what they don't have, people complaining about the weather, or their finances, or their love life, or their family.  But how many, if when we sit down to think about it, are doing so badly?  Many of my friends are gainfully employed, loved by family, living in stable homes, eating well-nourished meals, being entertained by any number of jesters, and have enough money to have a cell-phone plan with unlimited data (talk about an unnecessary "need").

I have HBO for crying out loud!  How bad can life be with a data plan and HBO! You can drag me to unlimited meetings about trivial matters and cutbacks and compromises, and yet the entirety of said meeting, I can be playing Candy Crush on my iphone, or checking my former students' facebook pages for juicy gossip, or set my DVR to record some über violent show on pay-cable?

Yes...just like this, in my
front yard.  

I'm not living like Moses...I'm living like the Pharaohs. I'm living in glorious excess.  I could go down to Home Depot right now, and buy enough cement blocks to build a mausoleum devoted to my greatness in my front yard, while barely affecting my checking account:  Here lies Chris Plumb: blogger, teacher, complainer.  He once got a thousand hits in one day on his blog, and once ate an entire DiGiorno Pizza on his own.

Good God, Moses. I'm sorry I tried to make an allegory comparing my life to yours.  I'm sorry I was complaining that my house is a balmy 84 degrees in May, when you wandered for 40 years in the armpit of the sun with no SPF protection.  What a wimp I am.

Thanks God. Thanks life, thanks family. I, for the most part, have it pretty good. So here's my new mantra: To complain is human; to give thanks, divine.  You can remind me in three days when I'm upset about my car needing new brake pads.