I'm Proud of the Fact I've Been Fired Before from Jobs

I hear people bragging about it all the time. "I've never been fired from a job!  I've never been arrested!  I've got great credit", etc.  Well, I actually have good credit, but its had its  downs over the years.  I've certainly been arrested and I've been fired from four different jobs in my lifetime.  The point is having great credit, never having been arrested, and never having been fired could be signs of great discipline, commitment, and maturity on your part, but probably just as much, if not more, having all of those "accomplishments" means you are someone who has never really taken any risks for anything beyond your personal comfort and advancement.  It doesn't have to mean that, but I would argue that in most cases, it probably does mean that.

The reason I say that is because these "accomplishments" are not really the criteria for success that we have been programmed to believe they are.  What they are measurement gauges for is someone who goes to great lengths to avoid any difficulty.  When you live in a backward, anti-human society like this one, avoiding trouble is more the sign of cowardice and selfishness than virtue.  I mean, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., was unquestionably correct when he said "the only place for a just man in an unjust society is jail!"  In other words, Jesus was persecuted because he refused to stay silent and inactive against the oppression he witnessed.  And somehow, the followers of Jesus have learned its ok to ignore that reality and instead become the person who avoids the trouble Jesus instigated, instead of being the person challenging the corrupt status quo.  

My own life is an example of what I'm arguing here.  Each time I've encountered police that led to me being taken into custody resulted from me standing up for issues of injustice.  Its never been for anything else so not only will I never be ashamed of being arrested, using King's dictum, I consider it a badge of honor.  The same goes for the backward and racist jobs I've lost.  I lost them because I refused to remain silent in the face of inequity and injustice, typically against other people, not myself.  Today, I work in the labor movement which is obviously far more tolerant than the credit union/finance industry I worked in during the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s.  Still, even today, I had an encounter with a racist woman in a work place.  While I was tabling there she informed me that she didn't support labor unions because she is 100% against immigration.  She was so quick and gleeful to include that she "voted for Trump" and supports him wholeheartedly.  I informed her that all of that was her problem and she needs to read more because she's woefully uninformed when she kept saying "the law has to be followed on immigration."  I told her that she wouldn't even be able to come into the building we were in if women before her had refused to break unjust laws and I certainly couldn't be there based on "the law" so her laws mean nothing to me.  I also told her she was uninformed on a criminal level about the degrees of financial resources immigrants pump into this society by paying taxes through their employment while  being unable to benefit from most of the services their tax dollars finance.  I told her that her beloved president built much of his undeserved "wealth" from exploiting that same immigrant labor she's ignorantly talking about.  She tried to talk over me, but that's rarely an effective method against me.  It ended with her leaving in a huff to me telling her repeatedly to read, read, read, and stop letting someone else tell her what to think.

My point is behaving like the above on most jobs is absolutely vital to changing the backwards narratives that pose as analysis in this society today, but doing so will get you in hot water with most employers.  So, if you lose a job because you refuse to just silently endure racist commentary like that coming from that woman, I don't believe you have anything to brag about for "never being fired."  Instead, you should be bragging about being a complete minion for the empire.

Its absolutely no fun to be arrested or to lose your job.  I know this from experience, but how you manage through all of those things comes down to what's important to you.  For me, I'll always choose personal discomfort to myself in exchange for long term dignity.  I regret nothing about my decisions in these areas.  Its made me a much stronger person than most people and I enjoy being able to try living on a standard of principles instead of selling out to every bit of adversity that comes my way.  What I'm saying is living by principle builds character and its that character that holds you when you make difficult decisions that cost you on a personal level.  Its difficult, but you learn the capacity to move through it.  Painfully through it, but eventually, I've come out better from every bit of that adversity.  And, since my goal is never to co-exist with injustice, I have learned to respect my choices and whether people admit it or not, they respect me for my decisions as well.  That level of dignity is worth more than any lottery could win for me as it relates to riches and it wouldn't trade it for anything.  Also, what matters to me more than anything else is that I honor my commitment and responsibility to those who paved the way for me to exist.  Our ancestors struggled through more than most people today could spend five minutes enduring.  Some of us are so entitled and self centered today that if slavery was instituted right now we would never survive with the dignity that our ancestors demonstrated to us.  I live to honor that dignity for future generations as they did for us.  That's where the strength comes from and to me that's why I can function in this backward society without a lot of the issues some people face with just making it through the day.  

So, the next time someone's bragging about achievement in this oppressive society turn your thoughts to how you can do what you need to do to survive while not sacrificing your dignity in the process.  Its a decision you will never regret.