Consequences

Mmmm, there's a video going around Facebook, of a bear chasing a bicyclist.  What do you think you'd do if a bear, that size, caught up with you?  

Now, consider a bear-sized man, refusing to cooperate and it's YOUR JOB to get him under control.  What do you think you'd do?  Doesn't matter what color you are or what color he is.  Let's be real.  

People, all over, are doing whatever they damned well please and think there won't be consequences. Friends on Facebook are posting complaints fairly regularly about people who don't use their directional signals.  It's irritates me too but that's nothing. People don't pull over when they hear sirens behind them.  Apparently, they don't think rules apply to them.  I wonder what they'd think if they were in that ambulance or waiting for that firetruck or that police car.

We aren't alone on this planet.  In order to live together in any kind of peace, rules and agreements are necessary or we'd all be beating each other up pretty regularly.  Just think, when was the last time somebody you don't know infuriated you on the road?  Are you going to try to kill them every time it happens?

So, if you want to live in peace; if you want to live in relative safety; if you want to be left alone, keep in mind that everything you do affects everything and everyone else, no matter what your motivation or intention.  And, there will ALWAYS be somebody who doesn't like what you're doing.  But, as long as you try to follow the rules, behave considerately, and listen to those whose job it is to keep things peaceful, you should be OK.  

Otherwise, you may pay consequences far beyond what you anticipate.

Things are rarely fair.  Don't expect them to be.  What's good for you isn't for someone else and vice versa.  Do what you can to live as you want without going too far to take it back.

The deck is stacked for most of us.  I don't know anyone that's holding the deck.  I've found ways to live as I want without too much trouble.  I've also paid the price of trying to exact my own justice and have things my way.  

You can be freer if you keep a low profile, move between the cracks, appear to be "normal" and keep your differences to yourself.  Do you want to be yourself?  Live your own life?  Or throw it all in the face of  unconscious forces?  

And, don't fool yourself into thinking that all those people who appear to be doing things you can't are getting away with it.  There are always consequences.

The police have a job to do.  We want them to do their job, most of the time.  They're just people.  If they face someone bigger and stronger than they are, should they just let them go?  Do you want that bigger, stronger person to show up at your house, like a bear chasing you on a bicycle?  I don't think so.

You don't get respect if you don't behave respectably.  You don't get respect by exempting yourself from decent and reasonable behavior.  If you don't park where you're supposed to park, signal when you're supposed to signal, pull over when there's a siren behind you, wait in line quietly and patiently, pay your bills, etc., etc. what do you think should happen?

You'll pay the consequences.