Oxymoron 2.1 version

Oxymoron 2.1 version

In updating my blog labels, I ran across this old blog.

Folks - it's worth revisiting.

Truisms never go out of style. So, relive the truth from 2009.

"We are a people who spend money we don't have on things we don't want to impress people we don't like."

Okay, that is a seriously great line . . . especially with the ring of truism in it.

I'd like to take credit, goodness knows, I like good writing. I'd even like to give credit where it's due; however, this piece of wisdom belongs to the man who wrote, Why is God laughing?. Sorry, I didn't catch the gentleman's name during his Good Morning, America interview. The gentleman who did remind me quite a bit of Mahatma Gandhi, sans the big nose, spoke eloquently about the oxymora (or our common plural version - oxymorons) in our lives.

For those who need the dictionary lesson: Oxymoron
a figure of speech by which a locution produces an incongruous, seemingly self-contradictory effect, as in “cruel kindness” or “to make haste slowly."

Sometimes, an oxymoron is more than a figure of speech. Sometimes, it's life in action.

Case in point . . .

My husband, smart guy that he is, related another just a few days after I'd been turned on to this thought. While walking our dog -- sometimes it's more the dog walks us than we walk the dog -- but dog and hubby were getting along down the bike trail when my hubby dearest noted a guy out tilling his garden for spring planting. The oxymoron was the hacking and coughing up one lung this old boy was doing while puffing away on a ciggy for the other lung. Even more of an oxymoron is that this guy will be planting a garden, fruits and veggies one must assume -- as in the healthy stuff -- yet he's polluting his lungs at a rate far faster than the fruits and veggies can save. Yep, Gardener Man was definitely a life in action oxymoron.

Okay, don't get on the collective soap boxes and lecture me about smoking and the rights of smokers everywhere. I'm a reformed smoker so I get to point and laugh. However, the point is the oxymoron.

But there's more . . .

What about the folks who crave children, and then leave them to be raised by daycare and nannies? Okay, I understand that sometimes both parents have to work to make all the ends meet and right now the ends might not be meeting at all. But if honesty won out, many folks could live in a smaller house, drive less expensive cars, take less grand vacations and make the budget balance on one salary.

Watch that soap box . . . I'm simply pointing out the oxymoron. If raising kids was the the most important thing, why would it be left to strangers?

That same tangent could be eloquently stated for our current educational system. How can we, collectively, claim that education is the most important thing when we, collectively, don't lobby -- forget lobbying, how about storming the capitol -- and demand that teachers' salaries match the job we lay on them? Our oxymoron, collectively, is that we'll pay exorbitant prices to go watch athletes run around a field, high-powered cars drive in circles, etc. Point should be made, collectively speaking.

So perhaps Oxymora are a way of life.

For a 2017 update: Is your life filled with an oxymoron or two? A negative that needs to be turned into a positive? Chaos that reigns over focus of life? Are you spending money/time/energy on minutiae that you can ill afford/don't need/won't use to impress people who in the long run should never have the opportunity to 'run' your life? That's a weighty thought for Motivational Monday. Give it the serious attention that it deserves.

Do drop by the porch again.