Lightfall

The measure by which we establish self-esteem - from the job titles we have, to the cars in the driveway and the retirement portfolios tucked away - is directly linked to the intensity of struggle we might grapple with upon any feelings of failure or worthlessness, particularly in our old age. Things shift - especially in the corporate sector; and they never shift with the general public's advantage in mind. I don't care whether one "did it right" or didn't; countless times, the appetite and tenor of "free enterprise" is not built to be viable for the long term. It is rigged, rising and falling upon false advertising, insider trading, and scams.

There was a day before the inception of Wall Street when families took care of one another; it was the foundation that sustained our homes, lands, and happiness. From the onset, simplicity and the tending to individual homesteads served to substantiate and herald the American dream. Generations of honor, learning, living, and assisting in the raising of these families, is what made America great. However, when prosperity met with the divisive and yet alluring lucrative incentives of "something for nothing" - cloaked under public trade - we essentially lost. Inheritances became either amassed or destroyed upon the whim of advertised conjecture and opinion. That is when an historic shift in everything, from our pocketbooks to the lack of contentment, overall malaise, and dispensary of anti-depressants, took a stronghold and escalated in damning proportions.

Now days, people find it normal to live on prescriptions, no sleep, little mindfulness, and a constant push to establish worth. Why? Indoctrination and media for the sole purpose of the higher echelons of corporate associations and their fat profit margins. Here we are, generations later, with more technology at our fingertips and advertised opportunity, but have been virtually enslaved by pure dogma. While we have come full circle in needing our parents to help watch our kids because of the oft necessity of dual incomes, we haven't come back to the very real point that our parents are not burdens, and that they deserve our reciprocated honor and support because it is their right and their due. We have not come back to the idea that family, and the togetherness of family, is why we work.

We should not work to establish our identities; we should honor our own intrinsic value and then work to provide both sustenance of the physical and mindful kind to our children, to make sure they are equipped with the moral and responsible encouragement and behavior to do so for theirs. Unless and until any of us younger people get this, we will move into that forlorn and tossed aside generation upon the moment our age relieves us of popular notice.

By the power and passion that fires up inside of my soul - I will not stand for it.

The sum calculation of individual worth is not found within haves, titles, possessions, or a perfect timeline and a fat retirement portfolio. An entire lifetime of experiences should not be sneered upon nor met with perceived attitudes of failure by virtue of monetary merit, the lack thereof, or social positioning.

Our parents should not have to discard their own worth nor feel as a burden to their adult children no matter their financial, emotional, or physical abilities. Ever. In this, we consign ourselves to similar futures and the often debilitating and devastating depression exacerbated by such rejection. Aching loneliness and desolation is an epidemic as much within our youth and grown children, as it is within retired generations. It's sickening poison projected by social indoctrination.

Family has become as naught. And many parents leave this earth buried by the shame of what they think they lost or didn't accomplish.

This scores my soul.

The marketing of worth under transient appeal and storefront ideals has stolen much from our homes, families, and nation. It has laid waste to everyday contentment, singular peace, and uninhibited joy. In this, I demand that we take back the original definitions. I demand that we reconsider home, family, motives, esteem, the use of our time, the thoughts that we think, and then truly reject the need for anything but the development of ourselves and our own.

Let the sum of our lives be calculated by the intensity and care with which we cherish our loved ones, the satisfactions we enjoy through exploring talents, the endless highs that sing in joy from encouraging others; let it be satisfied through sharing compassion, basking in gratitude, nourishing home, and living in faith.

Worthiness has no expiration date - neither does service or grace.

Living Joy - This Carman Girl