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Use wisely your power of choice
written by Allan Branch on May 27th, 2009
Neil Boortz (@Talkmaster) is a newstalk radio host that I listen to. He recently wrote a commencement speech and here's my favorite part.
To imply that one person is homeless, destitute, dirty, drunk, spaced out on drugs, unemployable, and generally miserable because he is "less fortunate" is to imply that a successful person - one with a job, a home and a future - is in that position because he or she was "fortunate." The dictionary says that fortunate means "having derived good from an unexpected place." There is nothing unexpected about deriving good from hard work. There is also nothing unexpected about deriving misery from choosing drugs, alcohol, and the street instead of education and personal responsibility.
It's not luck, my friends. It's choice. One of the greatest lessons I ever learned was in a book by Og Mandino, entitled "The Greatest Secret in the World." The lesson? Very simple: "Use wisely your power of choice."
read the whole speech here
To imply that one person is homeless, destitute, dirty, drunk, spaced out on drugs, unemployable, and generally miserable because he is "less fortunate" is to imply that a successful person - one with a job, a home and a future - is in that position because he or she was "fortunate." The dictionary says that fortunate means "having derived good from an unexpected place." There is nothing unexpected about deriving good from hard work. There is also nothing unexpected about deriving misery from choosing drugs, alcohol, and the street instead of education and personal responsibility.
It's not luck, my friends. It's choice. One of the greatest lessons I ever learned was in a book by Og Mandino, entitled "The Greatest Secret in the World." The lesson? Very simple: "Use wisely your power of choice."
read the whole speech here
5 Responses to “Use wisely your power of choice”
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Personal responsibility for the win, literally. Also, when misfortune does come the way of a responsible person they are much more likely to be attractive to receive help to overcome the trials they face.
Neither you or me made a conscious choice:
We have both derived significant and unplanned advantages in life from these factors. This is nothing if not incredibly fortunate.
Nobody makes a conscious and informed choice to spend life on the streets or as an addict. There is a significant link between long-term addiction and pre-existing mental illness. 80% of people are homeless for less than 3 weeks as they get a job or find support from family/friends.
From http://mentalhealth.samhsa.gov/publications/allpubs/homelessness/ , regarding homeless people:
Schizophrenia sets in at around our age, we work in a ridiculously high stress profession and there’s a not-insignificant chance that we’ll get cancer at some point.
We will continue to be fortunate every day that we have a power of choice to freely exercise.
However, heaping of scorn and contempt are due to our peers who have shared all of these advantages and still ended up as chronic losers (or as talk radio hosts who write unsolicited commencement speeches attacking the homeless).
@Gareth, you don’t know me well, because I am not very intelligent. :)
Anyone can rise above their situation, does that mean everyone can be the next Steve Jobs, no. Does that mean they can hold down a job and support themselves, yes. I think your stats only reflect how lazy and excuse filled our society is. Nobody makes a single choice to an unproductive person in society. It’s a culmination of many decisions over many years.
Allan – surely you were not brought up in an environment where drugs/unregistered guns are a part of daily life.
People CAN RISE ABOVE their circumstances – but this relies heavily on coming to the realization (aka LEARNING) that you can in fact leave the situation/environment you are in.
LOL most legal guns in private possession in the US are unregistered, Auston.