Safety Dance

You can carry anti-bacterial hand wash with you at all times. You can buy insurance on your house, your car, your life, your pets, your vacation, and even your wedding. You can fill your medicine cabinet with antibiotics. You can get radon detectors, smoke detectors, leak detectors - any sort of detector, probe, or alarm your heart desires.

But you know what? It really doesn't matter. Life is dangerous and painful. People get sick. They die. They disappoint. Nothing you buy or do will ever safeguard you against pain, both physical and psychological. Deep down, I think most of us know this to be true.

So why can't more of us accept this? And why do so many feel entitled to be spared these unpleasant things, or, at the very least, be compensated when they happen?

As you know, I'm all sweetness and light. So my theory is that there's big business in both fear and disappointment. If you can combine the two? Payola! It's a forgone conclusion that the government wants us frightened and confused, but I think that it goes a lot further than that. People in discomfort will do nearly anything to rid themselves of the unpleasant situation. So, really, fear is a windfall for security companies, the pharmaceutical industry, personal injury lawyers ... and the list goes on.

Really, though, life is mean, unfair and sometimes downright painful. Nobody promised you a rose garden, indeed.