Spring Cleaning at Work

So, how satisfying is it to clean out your email?  Actually, quite a bit.  I was using 160MB of my mailbox.  I went through the inbox and sent mail portions, then went and deleted it out of the deleted box and cut it down to 75 MB.  Lots of email from the second half of last year that I hadn't had a chance to clean out.  Then I went through files.  When you move office, you find you have a number of files that you need to comb through and whittle down.  Most of yesterday I spent shredding a lot of those files (yes, it was sensitive information) for about four years worth of stuff.  So I didn't accomplish much of anything else (filled the shredder about five times though), but it was satisfying to get my office less full of boxes and putting the files away.

Now, if I could just get that feeling about the papers laying around my house.  They just keep coming.  School papers, ads from the mail, bills, stuff I need to make a decision or take action on.  I also need to finish taxes.  They are almost done, but need to force myself to do them.

Remember my organization from several weeks ago? Ok, maybe a few months ago already.  Yeah, that lasted about a week.

I dreamed a dream

This political fighting is getting to me.  It's haunting me in my dreams.

I am in a train car with separate compartments.  I happen to be in a compartment with Speaker of the House Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Reid.  I find I have a unique opportunity to speak to these two gentlemen.  I start off by saying that I'm disgusted with the fact that they cannot work together to come up with a compromise.  I state that life is full of compromises and we don't always get what we want.  In fact, people who compromise are valued for their ability to do so.  I'm tired of the bullying and standing off.  Both men just sit and stare at me.  I wax more poetic, telling them that I have a bachelor's and two master's degrees, and I can work with people to get things done.  Then I say, but I don't need those to know that working together is better than not.  All this I learned in kindergarten.  Then I round on Mr. Speaker, telling him that he should play well with others, and learn to share and that kindergarteners get this better than he does.  Then I yell at them both for sitting in their offices, getting perks, privileges, and extra money, just for having been elected.  I said they were out of touch and no politician really knows about what they do and how it affects people.  I said they didn't deserve the salaries and the high paying friends they had because they weren't getting the job done.

I woke up, still angry about the fact that these elected representatives aren't doing us a bit of good.  I started wondering if we needed to limit Congressional terms as well.  If they aren't worrying about getting re-elected, would they instead think ahead to the future and be brave enough to make the tough decisions to get us out of this mess.

The commission on the budget has said we need to change Social Security and Medicare.  They have suggested raising the age of retirement.  They have also said to get us out of debt, we need to increase taxes.  I'm sorry people, the reason why the banks failed was because too many Americans were over-extended.  But there's no incentive to save.  Not when savings rates are 1.35% and that's on a CD.  Do you remember when you could get 5% on checking?  Yes, really, on checking!!!  Instead of getting more credit people, we have to spend our hard earned money.  Yup, which means also the government needs our hard earned money to get out of debt.  We can't keep living in lalaland thinking we are going to get out of this by cutting what we spend.  Eventually, in a household, you don't eat, or don't drive your car, or don't pay your doctor bills.  Then the household will implode.  Not going to work for the government, either.  It's going to hurt and if people on the left would quit crying about the entitlements, buck up and say, hey, ok, we'll raise the age limits and cut back some, and those on the right, if they would quit hollering, no taxes (I'm sorry guys, your hero Ron Reagan raised your taxes.  He didn't like it, but he did it.  He and Tip came to an understanding. So if you're going to be all excited about him, remember, he PLAYED WELL WITH OTHERS).  Right wingers, we cannot be policemen of the world and spend our money on the military if you're not going to pay for it!

So, I'm thinking, I'm tired of politicians.  I would like to see the regular folks say, enough is enough.  And I mean moderates, not Tea Party unknowns or extreme liberals.  Moderates, who would think about running for office, think about only staying in one term, and if enough of us got there, would we be able to tackle the hard questions, talk civilly to each other and come to a compromise?  I would hope so.  But civilly minded people don't run for office.   Winners run for office, and they want to keep winning and have their opinions win.

It is getting so divided.  I will admit it, I find myself being a hater.  I hate being angry at the TV, angry at the person who votes against me or my position, angry at the people who won't work together, tense because I'm judging people before I really should, just because they are of a certain party.  I am tired of extremes.  I want a civil conversation.  I want my conversation to have give and take and, in the end, I want both groups to say, hey, that was a lot of hard work, but we each got a say and what we produced is something we ALL can be proud of.