Stop, Look, Listen and Smell the What?

Used to be that what you smelled was the sweet scent of roses or some other pleasing scent. Not today –today things don’t smell so good anymore. Have you stopped and wondered why?

Here is a list of ten reasons why the world we live in doesn’t smell too good anymore and what you can do about it.

1. There is too much man made pollution.
2. It is affecting the air we breathe and the atmosphere our dear earth lives under the umbrella of in the natural or is that unnatural order of things.
3. People no longer have much hope for a better future for them and their children.
4. Our children have little hope that things are going to change for the better and they are stinking up our atmosphere with their useless verbal diatribes of how they want and are entitled to more of everything with no effort on their part –they consider themselves entitled as part of the offspring of the entitlement generation.
5. People are just plain scared. they are fearful of homegrown terrorists, going to public places with big crowds, taking public transportation, and yes in some cases they are afraid their neighbors may be terrorists.
6. The general public thinks things stink when almost every part of their lives are coming under the control of the government—no more sugared sodas, no more salt, no more fat, no more smoking no more drinking too much, no more smoking marijuana, and no more of just about any creature comfort you can think of except for enjoying the financial benefits to be derived from being wards of the State. The place stinks because of myopic thinking on the part of government regulators who are intent on having the prevailing point of view in spite of what the public may or may not want and on getting reelected. Running for office evidently starts the day after you start your new term leaving little time for doing the public’s work.
7. The stench you are sniffing into your lungs comes from years of broken promises by both major political parties sprinkled with a giant dose of we’ll do it next year rhetoric and somehow next year never seems to come. It’s fueled by an overriding feelings of sadness that we have come to this time and place where we no longer control our own destiny. It comes from a deep an abiding sense of dissatisfaction. It comes with the knowledge that we might have been more and now are no more than some hapless drones shuffling through our lives in this our new entitlement society.
8. We are a Nation on the dole who has lost its way and forgotten what made us great as a people and the rotting of our souls is what smells so bad.
9. But this isn’t the end. Can you not smell the sweet smell of success just around the corner? Can’t you remember how our forefathers forged a great union? Don’t you remember the good times? Don’t you want to have them again? Try a little harder. The sweet smell of your personal sense of fulfillment is just around the corner. All you have to do is try a little harder to be yourself.

Arthur Levine is the author of the novels Johnny Oops and Johnny Oops 11 – Timeless, which can be accessed at http://johnnyoops.blogspot.com.