Bad Decisions

My life has been a series of bad decisions.

It started when I decided to serve Humanity.

So I became a paramedic.  A Volunteer.  I paid for my EMT training out of my Burger King money (later classes were sponsored.)  And I helped people.  I watched people die.  Some I even knew.  I have seen horrors that I was powerless to stop.   I volunteered for this.

That's me on the left

Then, in college, I decided to serve Humanity more by becoming a teacher, and in so doing, consigning myself to never making a decent living.  I decided that the welfare of future generations superseded my own.  And for this, I was reviled and insulted and told I "obviously wasn't smart enough to get a real job."  Called Lazy ("teachers only work 9 months out of the year") despite 80 hour weeks.  Told that the fact that Johnny can't read was MY fault... despite the fact that I taught High school.  All this for 1/3 of what I made bartending.

My 24th birthday, working at TGI Fridays.  Teaching career was over by then.

And bartenders get FAR more respect than teachers.

Other people chose to help themselves above all, and they are the one driving Porsches and living in the McMansions.

There are so many huge houses around here.  Are there THAT many good jobs around?  Am I so incompetent and stupid that I can't find one?  Or am I just unqualified?

I have a Masters degree in Education.  It may as well be in basket weaving.  And I am buried in the debt caused by that education.  And the student loans, despite my keeping up with them, keep getting higher.  And even when I declare bankruptcy, they will be with me.  (Maybe the state will sell my body for parts to make up for it after I'm gone.)

Why am I buried?  Because I can't get a job in that field.  I'm obviously not hirable.

I mean, would you hire a non-passable transwoman in a customer facing position?  No, neither will they.

I mean, I have been directly told that I am not even competent enough to be a retail manager!  It's not an easy job, and I know some amazing people in those positions, but kids who drop out of high school get that job.  But not me.  I'm not management material, I guess.  Don't want to scare away the customers.

"Despite your qualifications, we decided to go in a different direction..."

I keep choosing to help others, and where has it gotten me?  I can't even sleep at night.

Now here I am; under the poverty level with no hope of ever climbing out.

My Bad decisions keep piling up on each other.

If I had half a brain, I would have taken a business major, or stuck with engineering and made a lot more money, or maybe gone into law. but no, I had to help people. Hell, maybe I should've followed my dream of a writing degree, but No- I had to be the martyr.

I had to help others.

And I have the scars to prove it.

This is what I often see in my dreams.  And I don't mean newspaper clippings.

Is it because I think their lives are more important than mine?  Is I value them FAR more than I value Me?  That my life, in the end, is totally worthless but maybe, just maybe, someone I help can make a difference?

Yes.

Bad decision after bad decision after bad decision.

Sometimes I think I should have been a sociopath, as they are the ones who are in control.  They don't care who gets hurt- they just make money hand over fist, and never see the consequences of their actions.  "Too big to fail."  That means too RICH to jail.  They laugh while we suffer.

And take the blame.

Within 90 days, if not sooner, I will be unemployed.


Someday soon, I need to make a good decision.