We’ve all heard the news about some guy suing three major fast food chains for his obesity. He’s only one of many people in this country who refuse to take responsibility for their actions.
This past weekend I was at a casino in Mississippi where I slipped and fell because the floor was wet. I quickly got up because I was embarrassed and kept walking. I wasn’t hurt, and I was relieved that no one seemed to have noticed I had fallen.
But suddenly an ambulance-chasing attorney approached me saying he had seen my “unfortunate accident” and wanted to help me. He went on to explain that I had a good basis for a suit but I needed to document my pain and suffering by a visit to a doctor that he just happened to know.
I refused his help and walked away, but the encounter left me thinking. This guy saw me fall, and instead of rushing over to help me up, he stood there contemplating a lawsuit against the casino.
Is this what the world has become: People stuffing themselves on 1,000-calorie, grease-soaked hamburgers seven days a week and then suing the fast food joints for making them fat?
If you don’t have the self-control or common sense to stop eating food that can potentially kill you-it’s your funeral. But don’t blame the fast food joints for peddling bad food at cheap prices.
Every day on those TV judge shows we jilted men and women suing their ex-lovers for maxing out their credit cards or running up the cell phone bill. No one wants to take responsibility for his or her part.
Girls and boys, if you are stupid enough to lend money to someone who already owes you money, you should have to eat that.
“Charge it to the game,” as my aunt Ophelia would say. Look at it as a life lesson and move on. It is easy to lay the blame at someone else’s door.
It makes us feel better when we are the victims and we can point our finger and say, “Look what happened to me!”
But that attitude makes us weak people with little character. A person of character finds a lesson in every failed venture and every lost love. That’s what we should all aim for; we should all aim to be people of character.
If you are truly injured or wronged, then, yes, go out and seek to be made whole. But don’t ask the world to fill a void in your life that you created.
