America the Beautiful

And the beautifully cruel.

The current presidential election season has roused strong emotions. It seems that none of those emotions are going to do America any good though. The political climate has been rocky for years. I can't remember the last time I heard anything good said about politicians.

I understand that the house I was raised in leans towards being conservative and extremely distrustful of authority figures. It was only recently that I found out none of my friends parents would quiz them on appropriate behavior for being arrested. Every time we watched a cop show as a family my dad would mute the commercials and ask us what to say if we had been arrested for those crimes. The answer was the same every time.

"I want a lawyer."

Say nothing else, not even your name until you get a lawyer.

In retrospect it seems a little strange that my dad would be so adamant about this particular problem. Was he expecting us to be a family of bad criminals. Bad as in they are always getting caught, because good criminal don't get caught, that's what makes them good. Or was he just preparing us to live in world were people are persecuted for not following the norm. Because if that was the case it would make a lot of sense.

I don't even have any answers, it's just something that has been bothering me for a while now.

Rules

I was talking with a friend recently and kind of made on off hand joke about rules to live life by, only it really wasn't a joke. I've never sat down and written out the basic rules I follow, but I definitely have a set of parameters for my interactions with other people. Ones I realized I have not been following recently, and it has caused problems. These 'rules' aren't really short, pithy statements about life and how to get through it easily so much as they are statements that should be obvious.

For your enjoyment.

Miche's rules for life

1. Accept people for who and what they are

2. If at all possible to do not have expectations

Expectations lead directly to disappointment when they aren't met.

3. Pay attention when someone is willing to teach you something

You never know when something might come in handy later, the more you know the easier it will be to problem solve (which will hopefully get you a job).