Does everyone have one inside?
Strange the things that can come to mind when watching a movie. I was watching the movie “Fun With Dick And Jane” the other night, no this is not a review on this movie, though I have to say Jim Carey can still make me laugh till it hurts. This is his best movie since Bruce Almighty. Anyways, an interesting movie about how a family, where the father worked in the corporate world and was being promoted, found themselves in chaos when his company’s stock dropped faster than a skydiver without a parachute. After the both found themselves without jobs, having no luck finding a decent job and about to lose their house, they turn to robbing stores and eventually end up liking it to the point of getting good at it. This is where I found myself thinking about them choosing a life of crime to solve their problems. I began to ask myself if every person had the instinct to become thieves in order to survive. I also began to wonder how many people now a days who are criminals were actually that way before, did they have the desire to steal from the moment they could think for themselves or were situations similar to that of this movie were the reason for their bad choices.
I admit to have made mistakes when I was young, mostly due to ignorance and peer pressure. At one point in my life I found myself taking money that did not belong to me and it got easier and easier, ‘till I realized how much money I had taken. I eventually stopped, but the others did not. The irony is that I ended up losing that job but not because of the money, simply because we had a new manager and he was there to clean house and eliminate those who made more that minimum wage to save money and look good. I was a target just like the guy who helped me get the job was when he got fired. Soon enough I was on my way home with my last check but he did find out about the money thing, till one of the idiots who worked there got caught over a year later doing it and tried to take everyone down with him, including me, but I wasn’t even in the same state anymore, besides they didn’t believe him much. The fact that it became easy to get the money made it more and more tempting to continue everyday. I was not in any financial woes so I had no need to do it, but I did it anyways.
These past few years I have been in a few financial woes, I actually moved to Puerto Rico looking to start over from the bottom. Talk about a bad idea. I have come really close to poverty; I’ve lost my water once already. I’ve even found myself with an empty fridge and no gas in the car for days, not to mention being close to not being able to pay my rent and getting kicked out. But even this has not been enough to make me pursue a life of crime to fix my problems. But how many others have been in the same situation as me or worse or not as bad and chose to steal to try to fix their problems? It’s a sad truth about life, one that I believe could be avoided if 1) money was not everything (let’s be honest) and 2) people were more educated.
What do you think?