Once upon a time in high school, the powers that be decided we students needed a motivational speaker. So they went local, and tapped Joey Puffball–star of our high school football team some 20 years earlier: the team that went down in civic history as having won almost as many games as it lost. Joe had been dining out on that ever since.
So there we were, the captive audience, fighting off sleep as Joe droned on and on about such mysteries as Pride, Determination, Guts, Ambition, and Ability. One by one, each headed by a large capital letter, he scrawled them on his blackboard. PDGAA.
“And what’s that stand for?” he challenged the audience whom he had just spent 40 minutes telling what it stood for.
I answered, “Wait a minute! That spells… p’d’gaa ,” pronouncing it as best I could. Everyone who heard it laughed. That was not the reception Joe had been expecting. He was a bit put out by it.
But compared to what they’re “teaching” students now–Joe Puffball come back, all is forgiven! Bring back Pdgaa!
This is the first I ever heard it presented in this manner, but I can see it has been around and growing.
Let’s hear it for Joe Puffball, but he should have ordered his talk around ” gadpa.:
Isa 5:20 says: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil.” It seems like virtually every day we see this attitude on display. Somewhere along the line, even desiring a positive outcome has become a bad thing. I just want to be self sufficient and live quietly, but somehow this has become selfish in the eyes of some people.
Perhaps 10 years ago, I was in the drive-up at a fast food restaurant, getting a take out breakfast, on my way to work. Beside the drive-up lane, was a young fellow in his late teens on a BMX bike, glaring at me like I was the font of all evil. When I was his age, I was trying to find my way in life. I was thrilled when I got a construction job, working until sundown and coming home so tired that I ate my evening meal and fell asleep immediately thereafter. If I saw someone that had found more success than I, my first instinct would have been to learn how they had achieved that success, and I definitely was not hanging around fast food restaurants staring daggers at someone just because they had the audacity to have a job, a cheap pickup truck and the enough spare change to buy a breakfast sandwich plus a cup of coffee.
Some, but certainly not all, of today’s youth have been conditioned to believe that success is a bad thing. It’s hypocritical, because the teachers that pound such nonsense into their heads are not doing so for free. They have jobs, automobiles, medical insurance and homes, but the curricula taught in many schools teaches children to reject these things, in some vague belief that doing so will result in a fairer, world, free of inequality and strife.
This is utter nonsense. When I think of the young people in my family, my wish for them is that they have opportunity, and nothing more. With all do respect to Kris Kristofferson, nothin’ ain’t worth nothin’ WHEN it’s free. (Sorry, Mr. Kristofferson; you wrote a lovely song, but the notion that “nothin’ ain’t worth nothin’, but it’s free” is utter rubbish. How much have you collected in publication fees for that song?)
As I write this, there is a severe shortage of workers in the US. Anyone willing to work will be welcomed into the workforce with open arms. Less than two weeks ago, I was called out of the blue by a recruiter offering a management position with a nearby municipal government … and I turned him down! (As good as it was, I’m better off where I am now.) This would have been unimaginable 10 years ago. Here I am in the closing years of my career, and I have opportunities right and left. Recruiters have offered me gifts, just to stay in touch.
And in the midst of this, we have a generation of young people that have been conditioned to believe that working and succeeding is somehow wrong. When I came into the workforce, jobs were scarce. Any semi-skilled worker could be replaced instantly and just the opportunity to make $40 per day was considered a huge break. Had I the opportunity for a municipal job in those days, I would have been on Cloud Nine.
Good and bad have been inverted.
Wise and true words, Unknowable. I see it all around me.
We seem to be in an interesting time. Right now, reality itself is being challenged from many quarters. People reject reality and, to be frank, I find it hard to know who to believe, these days. But I believe our Maker and His word. Satan started by challenging reality, so none of what we see around us is all that surprising. Our only hope is in God.
amen. the present god of this world is hard at work, and he will be untll his time is up. We have to be on our knees doing battle against him and his lies.
That’s the situation. We are not struggling against the things which would seem obvious, because the ultimate source of this madness is in the spirit realm. Even the people that are involved in this madness may well be ignorant of what they are really promoting.
Developments in the MidEast continue to move in the direction of the Gog of Magog war. In my humble opinion, that’s the real story. The rest is insignificant, by comparison.