{"id":115,"date":"2005-09-04T14:27:23","date_gmt":"2005-09-04T18:27:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/ecclog\/2005\/09\/04\/selfish-americans\/"},"modified":"2005-09-04T14:27:23","modified_gmt":"2005-09-04T18:27:23","slug":"selfish-americans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ecclog\/2005\/09\/04\/selfish-americans\/","title":{"rendered":"Selfish Americans"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

My mom is a good person, but sometimes she says things that represent
\nwhat I despise most, the “what about my share?” American
\nmentality.  In discussing the hurricane and its aftermath, this is
\nwhat she told me, “You know, all of these people are going to need
\nentitlements, and this makes me worry, there’s going to be nothing left
\nfor C [my disabled sister].”*<\/p>\n

When I asked her if she was donating any money to the relief effort,
\nshe told me, “You shouldn’t give your money to other people, you have
\nyour own sister to help out.”<\/p>\n

Excuse me?<\/p>\n

These people have nothing, nothing!  C and my mom have me to help
\nthem already.  Why does she have to look at this disaster through
\nthe lens of her piece of the pie being cut thinner?<\/p>\n

Comparatively, we live lives of great luxury compared to the rest of the world.<\/p>\n

This has also forced me to think deeply about my own personal choices
\nover the past few years.  Yes, I took the lazy approach to my
\ncareer, I did the big firm thing.  I don’t mind the big firm
\nthing, but it stems from both the aforementioned laziness, and the
\nwhole, “I need to attain a modicum of financial stability before I can
\nturn to the causes\/issues that will be the real purpose of my
\nlife.”  But sometimes, I push this deferment of helping others in
\na significant
\nway to the
\nnext generation (i.e. “I’m meant to make partner, so that I can raise a
\nchild who will go out and save the world, instead of going into finance
\nor biglaw.”)   I lull myself into adopting this false belief
\nthat it’s the privileged children, who don’t need to worry about saving
\nfor a downpayment or student loans, who are allowed go out and take on
\nthese public interest projects.  But, no, the only thing that
\nkeeps me between the two paths is my own selfish desire for incremental
\nfinancial gain.  So, now, in the interim, I simply work too much,
\ndrink too
\nmuch, and shop too much, all with the idea of stashing away the excess
\ncash so that I can do good works later.  And this process is
\nsimply making me a stranger to myself.  So, in two to four years,
\nfolks, I count on you to goad me, to goad me into feeling inadequate if
\nI have not changed back by then.  The question to me should not be,
\n“E*, what are you making now?” but should instead be, “E*, who have you
\nhelped this week?”<\/p>\n

*My mother is aware that I am quoting her, and has told me, “I’m not going to tell you anything, anymore.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My mom is a good person, but sometimes she says things that represent what I despise most, the “what about my share?” American mentality.  In discussing the hurricane and its aftermath, this is what she told me, “You know, all of these people are going to need entitlements, and this makes me worry, there’s going […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[186],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legalese"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ecclog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ecclog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ecclog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ecclog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/121"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ecclog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ecclog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ecclog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ecclog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ecclog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}