Don’t judge me for who I am. I’m no better than you and you’re no better than me. I’m to the age now that I can talk about my past and say things like “when I was a kid we did ______”. For example, when I was a kid eating out was rare. I mean less than once every few months and that includes McDonalds trips (at least that’s what it seems like). There was a fast food joint called Dee’s that served $.25 hamburgers (some people might remember the place on Highland Dr, it had a giant clown on the marquee – it’s a McDonalds now). It also had seats that were shaped like horse saddles. You would think a quarter hamburger would be worth going out for more often but we still rarely went out. My mom said the food tasted like cardboard but it was fine for me (what does a 6 year old care?). So last month McDonalds had their annual Monopoly lottery game and I ended up going there every day. At the same time some things came up that prevented me from getting to the gym every day so in the time of the game I ended up gaining about 10-12 pounds (it turns out McDonalds food isn’t a good choice for dieters… or anyone). So, I broke from my normal preference of NOT going anywhere for lunch and headed to McDonalds for lunch.

So what does this have to do with accountability? It was MY choice to go to McDonalds. I knew I was getting food that was making me fatter and I was wasting money on that place. It’s not my right to blame McDonalds for my actions. I make a lot of actions that I’m aware will have possible consequences and I go in knowing those consequences and I’m prepared to accept them. Whatever happens will happen. A few years ago I had the opportunity to become an electrician. I was accepted into the JATC right at the same time that I was offered a job with HIT Web Design (then called Heritage Web Design). I stuck with HIT Web because I was interested in web development. Now, 5 years later, HIT Web is closed and cost me a lot of money in the process. I witnessed all the signs that HIT was shutting down as they were dying. They kept making one bad decision after another while I stuck by them. I wanted to help them build themselves up (unfortunately I didn’t realize the depth of the bad decisions and all the other stuff that was going on). If I had gone on with the electricians opportunity I would be close to a journeyman electrician by now. That wasn’t the path that I took. All choices lead to consequences which are good or bad and sometimes both. In my case it turns out that I thought I made a good decision even though it led to me losing my job and a substantial amount of savings. I now have a good job in the industry that I really enjoy being in. I get to learn move and more every day and I’m finding new avenues in my field that I’m really enjoying.

So, what brought this up? It was my thoughts on personal accountability. Right now there’s a big deal with Occupy Wall Street. As it’s been shown, most people don’t know the real reason that they’re occupying Wall Street. The general answer, when asked, is “because I don’t like big businesses running the country”. Truthfully, neither do I. My solution is to not support the big businesses that are running the country. I posted that on Facebook and got smacked down. So I guess the real solution is to stand in a street holding a sign while you wait for someone else to do something about it.

I don’t support WalMart so I don’t shop there. I read somewhere that they have such a strong buying power that they forced Nalley Pickles to move their production out of the country in order to get the price of a giant jar of pickles down to under $3.00. The jar was estimated to last a typical family for an entire year. If I need a jar of pickles to last a year I really won’t mind paying a few dollars more and keep their production here in the states. Proponents of outsourcing pickle production to other countries can shop at Walmart and feel their helping those other countries, but you better not be supporting the Occupy Wall Street crowd. In fact all those in that crowd better not be holding their cell phones, wearing their designer clothes, or driving their overpriced cars to and from Wall Street. Our civilization has become dependent on someone else making the decisions and doing the work for us.

I’m going to make this a two part post. If you come back for more I’ll give you permission to get a chocolate shake from McDonalds.