I Limp; So What?!

Hanh mitakuyapi. Hello my relatives. Last year, my total income was $9,000.00 . You read that right - less than $10,000.00 for the whole blessed year. I 'lived' on that. No 'assistance'. No 'welfare'. Was it fun? Not really. Was it tough? Yes. But I have a rugged kind of perverse pride in being able to say "without assistance"/"without welfare". I'd much rather have read about it than done it, but just the same..

It did leave me with one very uncomfortable thing, though.. I couldn't afford new orthopedic inserts, & I can't walk without them. Thus, I spent this year - nearly the whole blessed year - on either crutches or a cane. And I limp.

I can't tell you how many people making $80,000 & more / year expressed "sincere sympathy" for my situation. And not one of them offered to pay for another set for me. How very sincere. In the Ndn Way, if you don't walk your talk, you compound the misery by shouldering a burden equal to the burden you could have relieved & refused to. Which says, you should not wonder why the world is in such a sorry state, the Mayan Codex Prediction notwithstanding.

Because of the crutches/cane/limp, this year my income may not even come to $9,000 for the whole blessed year. I no longer talk to those "sincerely concerned" people making $80,000 & more / year, needless to say. They don't avoid me; I haven't got time for lip-service-sorts like them.

They are the same people who are 'forever' carrying on about 'social responsibility' - until it steps into their yard or onto their front walk. Then, the silence - in the form of footfalls from them walking their talk - is deafening.

Some sage has observed that you're either part of the problem or part of the solution..

Not too long ago, I had a temp job & took some of the money & bought the materials to make my orthopedic inserts. I'm bright enough; I have the necessary skills even if I don't have the training; and now I make my own. I remarked on this to one of those "sincerely concerned" people. They said, "But what if you don't do it right! You could hurt your feet worse!" Can you beat that? No offer to get the "right" ones made; but "concern" that I might further injure my feet if I make a mistake. Go figure.