My Reaction to “Guilt” Memes

 

 

This meme popped onto my Facebook feed today. I usually scroll past them. Most people know how I feel about mindless memes. That said, this one is so typical of so many that constantly bombard us with one thing — guilt.

Yeah, I get it. I’m all for expressing sincere gratitude and plenty of people and trades deserve our respect. Veterans, sure. Farmers, absolutely. Truckers, agreed.

But I’m also getting sick and tired of the incessant “good old boy” victimhood that always gets shoved down everyone’s throats across social media, year around, usually posted by older white males who have unquestionably been the greatest beneficiaries of this nation’s privileges (including myself here), yet despite these advantages, are still constantly starving for attention and respect.

Here’s another viewpoint. How about a little broader perspective?

 

– If you can read and write, thank a TEACHER.

– If you live your senior years with dignity, thank a NURSE or a CAREGIVER.

– If you were lucky to avoid infectious diseases and stayed healthy most of your life, thank a MEDICAL RESEARCHER.

– If you enjoy clean water and safe meat and consumer products that won’t kill you, thank a GOVERNMENT HEALTH INSPECTOR.

– If you appreciate having a letter costing 70 cents to mail 3,000 miles across the country and it gets there in less than a week rain or shine, thank a POSTAL EMPLOYEE.

 

I could go on and on.

Thing is, vets or farmers or truckers or whatever don’t have a monopoly on praise. Think bigger.

Try changing bedpans in a hospital for a week. Work with the handicapped knowing they won’t ever improve and trying to stay positive. Commit to nursing cancer patients. Go out and inspect a meat packing plant. Stand on a freezing bridge and do essential repairs at night. Fight forest fires without inhaling deadly smoke and risking your life. Imagine what it’s like to work day after day with the mentally ill and then somehow try to maintain your own sanity when you leave after a shift but can’t help but take all your work problems home at night. Think of those dedicated angels who make our pets bettor or have to do the task of euthanizing. Or those who do plumbing. Or the men and women who make sure airplanes don’t crash into each other. Or a Ukrainian, right now.

Yes, thanks to all those who already have their well-deserved holidays. But let’s also remember those who don’t have any holidays, and yet never complain, and aren’t lucky enough to have people constantly posting memes about them all the time.

Perhaps I’m more sensitive to this alternative reality, Maybe it’s because I’ve seen the love and compassion of 24-hour round-the-clock caretaking first-hand for many years dealing with a family member with Alzheimers and have witnessed many good people — usually women with little public support and working mostly invisibly for little pay — who almost never get praise or guilt-triggering memes yet do the work many of us could not do. Where’s their medal….or parades….or special days….or thank you’s?

We should all be thanking EACH OTHER.

ALL of us.

EVERYONE.