How Much Are You Worth

How much are you worth? How much do you sell yourself out for?

I look down and ask myself how much am I worth on a regular basis.. right now, the average adult in southern Illinois is worth about $8.25 per hour.. thats minimum wage. some factory workers get paid between $14-16 per hour and an average wal mart employee makes $10 per hour.

Now this being said full time used to be considered 40 hours per week but ever since Obama and his "infinite Wisdom" created the medical reformation act, full time has now become 30 hours per week, which means not only do you get forced to buy insurance at an over priced rate but you also now earn a lot less money than you used to make. so that person that was originally making $330 per week is now making $247.50, that is $82.50 in lost wages per week or $4290 a year that has been lost.

now knowing this, a single person with one income makes about $990 before taxes and fica (social security which supposedly will run out before I get it, which is another story in itself) which ends up as being $721.77based on http://www.payrollforamerica.com/calculators/Illinois-payroll-calculator.php .
Now shall we add in costs of living? an average apartment in my town runs anywhere from about $400-$500 per month utilities from what I hear are similar as follows: average water starts at about $40-$60, electric about $175-$250, then there is food so look what has already been spent so far with even the cheapest 400+40+175=615 so lets hope you don't have a car payment or paying on anything else cause we still haven't included the cost of gas (locally $2.39 / gal when I wrote this), food, phone, consumables such as personal hygiene products, or anything like TV or Internet either oh and don't forget that insurance that is mandated by Obama. Right now as we are calculating you are seeing that this person working full time and is single only has $106.77 left from paying these bills.

now has any money been put back and saved at this point? probably not. By all rights we should be only paying out and living on 50% of our earnings or less, but as it turns out, the majority are living on about 75% or more.

So I ask you again, how much are you worth? you see this was just me trying to show you what average people around me are dealing with, how they struggle and how we as a community of people struggle daily to just exist. I myself am sick of just existing. I want to make more than that  little amount I quoted above, I am sick of being the man on the low end of the totem pole that every one craps on, on a regular basis. I know for a fact that I am not the only one that feels this way. But I tell you what in December of last year I met some people that gave me a small glimmer of hope, a star to steer by that I am trying to make work. Yes, it is hard work. Yes, you have to spend money to make money... But you know what? I see it working with so many people. I have met people over the last several months who have shown me so much that can come of this, and it is a way to escape from this living that isn't even a living. One man named Orrin Woodward call it the Matrix.. Its not hard to believe either because it does resemble it a lot.

So once more. HOW MUCH ARE YOU WORTH???
I know I am worth more than that $106 that was left over from those bills listed above, and so are you!

If you are interested to find out more information about what I am talking about, please feel free to contact me at 618.241.0328 or you can message me via hang outs or Google plus of even here by leaving a comment. I will get back with you I promises.

Write you again soon
~B

The loss of a friend

Wednesday night I received a message over social media telling me I needed to visit a friend of mine because he wasn't doing very good. About an hour later, his oldest child called me and let me know he had passed away.. I was left numb.. It had been about a week since I had seen him and I really wanted to get out to visit him and just hadn't had time in since I had started this job a few months ago... I feel now that it was just an excuse.. I should have and could have made an effort to drive the 20 miles to his home and visit.. He was after all, "one of my best friends".

We went 5 years without even speaking to each other but in 2009, I made an attempt to reconnect. The time we had spoken before that, we had spoken very harshly with each other and our friend ship ended.. But that day in December 6 years ago we reconnected and it was like seeing a long lost friend that moved away.. He had just had surgery and had lost his toe to diabeties the month before.

Instead of jumping forward to the end of my friend's story, I will instead tell some good memories from our past. ..

1989 : we met in the little quiet town of Bonnie, but not exactly sure, if memory serves me correctly it may have been through my friend Tony who I had met not too long before that too... Keith was very charismatic and outspoken. But I seem to think remember that he some how we needed up going to cruise the mall and hit up the arcade.. Even though I didn't have money he still invited me along and offered to pay. This became a regular thing on weekends and we often times would spend the night at each others homes for game nights or wrestling pay per views.
Over the next few years we were pretty much inseporatable except for when I was at school.. You see he was a couple years older than me, and had actually dropped out of school a couple years earlier.

There was times that we would go "cruising" and flirt with girls in several of the local bigger towns.. We always had clean fun as opposed to the things I did when I was around my other friends.. Keith kept me out of trouble and he almost always had my back, as I also had his.

We both had crazy dreams of our future.. Of one of us making it big and the other one taking the other one with him if he didn't make it too...

We both had been told of our short life spans.. Me I was told by several doctors that I would be dead before I was 30, Keith always said that he wouldn't live to see 40 cause "that's just how it is and I don't wanna get old".. So over the years before we both got married to our first wives, we both pretty much did all kind of crazy things to see that we died in our youth.

We both lived a fairly free lifestyle of knowing what freedom of living on what we saw as being on the edge was like. We did what we wanted and how we wanted and didn't really answer to anyone... Well then we had to grow up.

By the end of the summer of 1992, our crazy childhood was over and we had to grow up.. We were both married and Kieth already had a child and I had one on the way.. We had to become " respectable" cause we were now dads.. Oh how it ended up as being just another adventure... And perhaps I will share some more stories of the adventures of Brad and Keith another time...

God speed my friend you are missed
~B