This past summer has brought a lot of grown-up things I've had to confront, most recently, taking on my college loans.  This however, is no reason to balk at this process.  As I thought of sending in the loans, I realized there were people on the other side of this messy bureaucracy of lend and repay.  With that in mind, I decided to write them a little note on my first payment envelope.  It went something like this:

Dear College Loan People,

Because I will be repaying my college loans for some time now, I thought it prudent each month (pending these [payments] going electronic) to share with you some of the wisdom your loans have imparted to me.  The first point comes from the poem "One Art" by 20th century American poet Elizabeth Bishop.  She writes:

"The art of losing is hard to master."

I agree.

It's easy to think that the world hates you when you don't get your way -- that God views of you as some sort of scab that he's just waiting to pick off at the next stoplight, that small animals and insects are out to get you, and that baristas everywhere want to mess up your americano intentionally because they think your teeth are too crooked, that your parents wish they had any other child in the world except you, that your brother's girlfriend hates all of your handbags and the way you walk, that policemen enjoy ticketing your car window, that everyone thinks you're a bigot and can't pronounce certain words like "water" or "anachronism" correctly, that the sun intentionally burns you, that high school acquaintances avoid you, that bad hair days adore you, and that the mailman keeps letters from people you love because he likes to see you walk to the mailbox each day and shriek at the spider he just put in there only to walk away without a letter and a little more lonely.

You shouldn't think that way though.  That helps nobody.

A few days ago I was perusing through my myriad of news organizations when I came across a headline that looked something like, "Bush says economy is 'basically fine'".

Now, I haven't been an ardent Bush hater or anything like that.  I supported the Afghanistan and then, more hesitantly, Iraq efforts.  After I saw the devastation our country was going through, I, like any good hipster of my generation half-heartedly protested the war.  However, unlike my hipster counterparts (and maybe showing some of my conservative roots here) genuinely believed the intelligence had been misleading,and that Bush himself was not misleading.  I questioned and doubted him, but never despised him. 

However, as I have observed, first from Canada and now from the US, the lack of concern and action he has taken concerning our ailing economy has been nothing more than abhorrent.  Watching family and friends suffer as well as seeing the entire United States reel under the influence of very poor economic choices was hard enough.  On top of that, to have the leader of this country say that nothing is wrong is unbelievable and on the level of the most inept administrations in our world today.  Admittedly, I don't know who caused this crisis.  It would be naive to say that it was only this administration, only the banks, only the Clinton administration, only the credit organizations, only the American people.  We're all to blame in some way or another.  Instead of pointing fingers or covering it up by throwing money at us, maybe we need to rethink some of our cultural habits (e.g. the $30 I spent on books yesterday) and investment concepts (trading stocks as if they were baseball cards).

More importantly, as this election comes forward, we need to reflect on the kind of leader who will align himself with the American people.  I have no stake in either candidate, but I want one who will not be as naive as our country's current incarnation of the French Queen, Marie Antoinette, who, not aware of the dire suffering of her own people lacking bread, simply said, "Let them eat cake."