Earlier today I recieved this in an email. I don't usually post about politics or related topics, but my in-laws have been visiting (they like to keep up to date and to discuss political issues), and I've been reading The Entreblog, and I like a good discussion. So when I got this in my email, I thought it may make an interesting one.
The email follows:
Subject: The ant and the grasshopper
There are 2 Versions - Read Both
TRADITIONAL VERSION:
The ant works hard in the withering heat all
summer long, building his house and laying up
supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and
laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The
grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out
in the cold.
MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself!
MODERN VERSION
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long,
building his house and laying up
supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and
laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a
press conference and demands to know why the ant
should be warm and well fed whil e others are cold
and starving.
CBS, NBC , PBS , CNN, and ABC show up to
provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next
to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a
table filled with food.
America is stunned by the sharp contrast.
How can this be, that in a country of such
wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer
so?
Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the
grasshopper, and everybody cries when they sing,
'It's Not Easy Being Green.'
Jesse Jackson stages a demonstration in front
of the ant's house where the news stations film the
group singing, 'We shall overcome.' Jesse then has
the group kneels down to pray to God for the
grasshopper's sake.
Nancy Pelosi , John Kerry & Harry Reid exclaim
in an interview with Larry King that the ant has
gotten rich off the ba ck of the grasshopper, and
they all call for an immediate tax hike on the ant
to make him pay his fair share.
Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity and
Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of
the summer! The ant is fined for failing to hire a
proportionate number of green bugs and, having
nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home
is confiscated by the government.
Hillary Clinton gets her old law firm to
represent the grasshopper in a defamation suit
against the ant, and the case is tried before a
panel of federal judges that Bill Clinton appointed
from a list of single-parent welfare recipients.
The ant loses the case.
The story ends as we see the grasshopper
finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while
the government house he is in, w hich just happens to
be the ant's old house, crumbles around him because
he doesn't maintain it.
The ant has disappeared in the snow.
The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related
incident and the house, now abandoned, is taken over
by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once
peaceful neighborhood.
I have to say that I think this is a bit of an exageration, but it did come in the form of an email forward, so I think that's to be expected. However, I do think it illustrates the entitlement attitude that many seem to have. If you notice there's a moral to the first story, but not for the second. If I were to choose one, it would be that Success cannot be given away. However, it can be learned. If we wish for our lives to be different, we should learn to aply the principals of those who have the lives we wish we had. (This is something I'm always working on myself.)
What moral would you give the second story?
4 comments:
Interesting story... not sure what to think! I know some people work as hard as possible and still have trouble making ends meet... however I guess those aren't the people that are suing, are they?
I'm glad you noted it was a bit exagerated! I can see what the author was trying to say, but can also see that they are generalizing to the extreme.
I don't know what the moral would be. Hmm. There's your spam comment again. Maybe you should do word verification?
I was thinking about doing word verification... the spam is pretty annoying.
I got this email and didn't read it because I don't read forwards... I agree that we do live in a world where many think they are entitled to something. It's like this, Darby has a friend who makes more money than we do, and has 3 less children, but yet, he mentioned to Darby that we have so much more... well, it's because of the principles we apply, the attitude, etc. success is about your attitude, it's about how you go about life on a daily basis, treating others, and how you treat yourself, and blah di blah! I gotta go be an easter bunny now!
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