I was going to get two entries in yesterday to make up for none on Friday.  Plus it was the first day of day of December so it would have been a good start for the month.  But, again, I didn’t get it done. 

Personal responsibility.  Taking just a bit more of that on would probably be a good thing.  From all of us and for all of us.

Across America today folks are waking up to a new day.  Monday.  Second day of December.  Thanksgiving 2013 is now done and gone and Christmas is now approaching.  I have a lot to do.

Across America people are rising.  They are facing the first Monday in December wondering what they need to get done for the coming holidays.  What decorations need to be put out; what gifts need to be purchased; who to send cards to (if folks even do that anymore); how they will pay for it all.  How will they pay for it?  How will we pay for it?

It seems that in many ways the bills come due regardless of our readiness to pay.  But pay we must.

Seems in many ways that we often incur debts that later seem rather foolish, or at least, not really worth taking on in the first place.  Why do we do that?  Why do we allow it to happen?

People are rising this morning, this day.  People are realizing the debts that are now coming due. 

The brave men and women who decided finally to throw off the bindings placed by another did so at great risk, risk to their very existences.  It was a pay as you go plan.  I suppose in some way they knew that, later on, there would be bills, debts that would fall due.  As it had been said, freedom is not free.

But it shouldn’t cost us in the way and in the amount that it does, now, today.  It has taken me such a long time in my own life to realize these debts that continue to go unresolved.   Debts that were foolish to incur in the first place.

We continue to ignore the fact that, like in any profession or with any sport we all need to pay our dues.  Some would say we do that already with our daily existence, with the myriad taxes that we pay, with the service that we or someone in our family have given over to our country.  Those who have made the ultimate sacrifice of a life are perhaps some of the only ones who can justly say they have given over to the last full measure.

There are far too many of us who have not given over enough, if anything.  There are far too many of us who feel that we are owed or entitled to certain rights, certain freedoms, certain handouts…by the very fact that we exist and didn’t ask for that existence; by the very fact that we were born into a very kind and giving country (can you name a better one?); by the assertion that somewhere along the way we or those before us were wronged; by the simple fact that it is the first Monday in December, 2013, and all is well if we are not directly or negatively impacted by all that is going on.  All is well that is not just now unwell for me.

At least some are waking up.  Folks are rising on this day and hopefully realizing that there are bills that are due- in many ways overdue.

I don’t much like this entry but I hope you get what I am trying to get at.  It is important and it is growing more so every single day. 

Expect more, give more.  And take what you have, what we have, in this great country seriously for whether you believe it or not, I believe that it is not impossible to lose it.  Forever.

Wake up America.  Arise America.  The year grows shorter with each passing day.