The Bulging Middle

Frankly, I’m tired of reading about all the people who are “falling out of the middle class” because my thought process works differently. Based on the past decade of conspicuous consumption, it becomes apparent that many people live above their means, using credit as a crutch to have whatever they want, rather than being content with meeting their needs and then adding the wants a little at a time. Young kids turning 16 have to receive a brand-new car to drive whether the family’s combined income can support that luxury or suspends their financial well-being on the brink of bankruptcy. Ditto the McMansions, the recreational vehicles, the humongous flat-screen TVS, the plethora of individual electronic devices, the designer wardrobes, the fabulous week-end getaways and annual family vacations at the hot spots around the world.

If you want it all, you have to pay for it, one way or another, and for the majority of the people living on credit as if they earn double their actual income, that bill comes due in a confrontation with a reality that results in losing much of what they (temporarily) have in their lives. That may be falling out of the middle class to some people, but to me, it's simply facing the reality of one's life. The financial foundation re-centers itself, a self-correction that happens naturally when people go too far into debt to be able to sustain themselves.

The message used to be that there are some people who come with money, while others earn it through innovation, dedication, and/or unique talent – and we celebrate their success in achieving The American Dream. On the other hand, there are those who fail to rise from poverty because they are too content to sit back and wait for what happens to them, those that I term the “stoop sitters” because, as the commuter trains take the workers to work, they pass miles of people sitting on their stoops, standing on the street corners, or waiting on the freeway ramps for a hand-out. In the middle is the support system for both the wealthiest, who need working people to allow them to continue their extra-ordinary success, as well as support for the stoop-sitters, who need working people to allow them to continue to sit on the stoop.

Some stoop-sitters make it into the bulging middle, while some of the world’s wealthiest fall from grace, but for most of us, we are the bulging middle, sometimes at the lower edge of it and other times at the higher end. We work hard, we get a good education, we find a reasonable job that provides us with financial stability, and we create our own version of The American Dream within our means to do so. That’s what used to be called living the good life for most of us, but we lost our way when we decided that we all wanted to live a life that we could not realistically sustain. Sure it pisses me off that some kid hyping himself as The Situation earns more from showing up at a club to get wasted than I earned in a year as a teacher, but hey, more power to him for wanting something above what he was and making it happen. Sure, it pisses me off that a former childhood actress earns more for posing nude for a magazine than I earned in a year as a teacher, but hey, more power to her for wanting something above what she was and making it happen.

But what pisses me off far more than a person making success for him/ herself are those who refuse to lift a finger to provide themselves with even the most basic necessities. If you refuse to provide for yourself because you have the expectation that I will provide for you, I say shame on you for thinking that and more shame on a government that fosters that way of life.

Ditto to those who vehemently and sometimes violently protest what they call the 3%: we need the richest among us to keep us working, so why not do something more personally constructive to provide yourself with an opportunity to rise above where you are, even, maybe to that coveted highest plateau? Steve Jobs and Bill Gates did it, as well as Mark Zuckerberg and thousands of talented musicians, actors, performers, athletes, inventors, innovators who began at the bottom but ended at the top, so why not you? No one is going to give it to you: if you want it, go get it, but first, get out of the tents, get off the stoops, and figure out a better way to achieve what it is that YOU want.

That's what I did, rising from the bottom and working my way into the middle -- but THAT'S WHAT I DID, not what I got from a free government program that provides me with hand-outs. I'm content to earn my keep, to have my own little part of The American Dream, all the while accepting that I'm not driven to go after the top tier of financial wealth and power. When I know people who are working hard to better themselves, I help them in whatever ways I can because I believe in rewarding work, not the lack thereof. A person begging on a street corner will NEVER get a dime from me because there are too many people who need a hand up to waste time with those who will only accept a hand-out!

If YOU want, go get it; if you won't go get it, then be content to be where you are, doing what you're doing, because that is actually what you want. Protest if you must, but pick up your own trash when you move on: I resent the hell out of paying for the mess you make, as well as the message you are sending about who you REALLY are where it counts.