Nobody Owes You a Damn Thing
Why care about society? Why prep? Why be a good parent, child, spouse, worker, or employer? Activism comes with the realization that nobody owes you a damn thing.
We should be grateful for those things that we have because they are not owed to us. We should be the people we don’t have to be.
Some People Who Don’t Owe You
- Your children do not owe you love, respect, time, or assistance even if you’ve done the very best you can for them.
The most you can do is raise loving, respectful, and helpful children who enjoy being around you. - Your parents do not owe you love, respect, time, or assistance just because they made you.
Be glad for what they do and did, even if it’s just that they made you. - Your wife or husband does not owe you fidelity, loyalty, a clean house, dinner on the table, financial support, or equal responsibility for the kids.
Hopefully you married someone who will back you up even if you stop liking each other. - Your friends and neighbors do not owe you assistance even if you’ve helped them before.
If you have fair-weather friends, that’s your fault. Look at who you hang with. - Your extended family does not owe you assistance.
Blood can be a deep river, but that only works if you’re a river rafter. Also, there’s an awful lot of seasonal streams. - Your employer and clients don’t owe you money or respect just because you worked for it.
You control who you work for. - Your contractors and employees don’t owe you good work just because you’ve paid for it.
It’s up to you to find service providers that are trustworthy. - The community does not owe you an ear for your thoughts or support in bad times.
We don’t have to listen to you or help you out when things go south. You need to say important things and prepare for bad times by yourself. - Big business does not owe you uncontaminated food, products made without oppression, or environmentally responsible operations just because you buy from them.
They’ll do whatever they can to save a penny for their pockets, and it’s up to you to figure out how you vote with your dollars. If you want social change, you have to make it. - The government does not owe you constitutional rights or the ability to support your family.
We have those rights because like-minded people made it so, and it’s up to you to keep it so. And no matter how the government acts, the family needs to eat. If you want political change, you have to drive it. - The world does not owe you clean ground or air.
Most of the time, it comes that way, but it’s a reactive system and could just go sideways with or without people. Volcanos aren’t personal or discriminating. - God and the universe do not owe you existence now or after death.
You’ve been granted some time here, do with it what you will.
Nobody Has To Be The Rock
None of the people around you have to do what they do for you. Life doesn’t come with a supply of smiles, laughs, and good times. Even just being okay is often a gift being given to you.
You have to make your own purpose. You can be the rock that everyone else can cling to during high tide or you can be just another lost swimmer.
Don’t blame anyone for anything. Don’t rely on anyone else to do what needs to be done. There’s no formulas or prescriptions to win or to be happy. If one road doesn’t lead to where you want to go, it’s on you to find a new road. You don’t have to be anything for anyone, but you’ll be one of the very best if you consciously choose to be.
You’re a grown person. Whatever happens isn’t because of other people. It’s because of you.
Made from public domain photo on public-domain-photos.com
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Neel Joshi
While I can appreciate the push for self-sufficiency, I have a concern whether–when taken to an extreme–such an ideology is sustainable. If no one ever owes anyone anything, then the world devolves into a massive prisoner’s dilemma with everyone out to screw each other. It’s possible that’s precisely how you see the world anyway, but I would say that at some level (whether that be close family, or close friends, or whatever), there has to be enough trust that they’ll do right by you and you do right by them.
Mad Caretaker
The point, perhaps inadequately made, at the end is that people can do right by each other without there being a sense of debt involved.
Also, I hope that you can have trust without one person owing the other.
Neel Joshi
I guess it comes down to the different ways of “owing” someone. It can be a transactional debt, or it can be a sense of responsibility and duty to others. I am advocating for the latter.
I would still say it’s fair to expect some of these things from those closest to you, but if it’s not happening, sitting and whining sure isn’t going to change that. Make do with what you do have and move forward.
Mad Caretaker
I’m onboard with that. I believe we should feel such a sense of responsibility and duty, but that we shouldn’t feel that others owe us the same sort of thing – but we should surround ourselves with people who feel that same way.
Helena Fortissima
Those are intense sentiments! Entitlement definitely challenges the spirit of cooperation.
Mad Caretaker
I hope intensity is good, then!
Indeed, the idea that one person is indebted to another automatically means one person has power over another. Neither a borrower nor a lender be. Give without strings.
PBscott
Very well said, though nobody owes me a damn thing, I treat people the way I want to be treated, and if they want to keep the light of friendship going, they better act like a friend.
As for evil corporations and governments, I can only hope there is a hell for them after they die.
Mad Caretaker
Damn straight.
Thanks for the comment!
nothingprofound
The idea of anyone owing me for an act of love or friendship is repulsive to me. Love or friendship must be freely given or it has no meaning at all.
Mad Caretaker
As always, you have a way of winnowing right to the core of things – that’s exactly where I was coming from when I wrote this. Thanks so much, nothingprofound.
Louie
My employer doesn’t owe me respect, but they definitely owe me money for the work I did. That was the arrangement we made.
Mad Caretaker
Your employer owes you money for work done in the same sense that you can only move the game pieces in a certain way on a board game. It’s in accordance with a set of pre-established rules that are kept to in good faith by players who still want to play that game, but has no bearing on the real obligations of the pieces in terms of physics.
Your employer could cheat when you go to the bathroom, or throw a fit and toss the pieces across the room. Your sense of debt is just a sense of expectation.
Dan Bonser
Always a nice way to think about it, no one owing anything, because gifts are given to be given, not as rewards for some future gift in return. I agree with it all, and I get to see, in person, how one parent beat it into their child that the child owes the parents. And its a really bad situation….
Mad Caretaker
How terrible.
Please don’t be too shy to call social services, Dan. Thanks for the comment.
June O'Hara
What an empowering and heartening message, one we can all learn from. Acceptance and managing expectations always lead to a happier state of mind. Sometimes it’s just hard to do.
I do take issue with one, though. I believe that a person owes his or her spouse fidelity, because they entered into a contract and agreed to the conditions. It was a conscious choice and vow, which I think makes it a little bit different from the rest.
Great post and, as per usual, so very well writtenn.
Mad Caretaker
Glad you dug it, June!
Let’s agree to disagree on that one. What if someone marries a notorious cheater, wouldn’t you say that there should be less expectation that the cheater will maintain the vows? Or what if one spouse repeatedly demonstrates a lack of fidelity and the other tolerates it, then isn’t the sense of debt somehow changed? Fact is, it’s not even legally binding, that agreement you speak of.
I’m not blaming the “victim”, I’m saying that management of your deal is your responsibility. It’s not that worrisome, just marry someone trustworthy. My wife and I have absolute trust in each other’s fidelity, but it’s not because we owe it to each other. It’s because we love each other and, when we married, we trusted that each other were people who would do what we said.
zobop republic
Some people may need a rock in this economy. Food for thought:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income
Paul
The way I prefer to see it is: Nobody owes you anything. You owe everyone everything.
Mad Caretaker
That’s beautiful, Paul, thank you.