There was a time, in the long ago and far away, like a little over the first half of the last century (yep, the 1900s), when the worst insult you could say of someone was, "Hummmpf, he thinks the world owes him a living!"
Things have changed. By the end of the 1900s, that appeared to have become a credo to live by. So many folks, in all seriousness, maintain that the world, indeed, DOES owe them a living! Heck! They didn't ask to be born, right? So therefore someone else better take care of them. "Don't ask me!" is the Swan Song of our culture.
There are many folks who do not have a concept of gratitude in their Nature. Any blessing or good fortune that comes to them gratuitously they regard as their due.
Could it be time to whistle up St. Patrick? |  |
One winter a Farmer found a Snake stiff and frozen with cold. He had compassion on it, and taking it up, placed it in his bosom. The Snake was quickly revived by the warmth, and, resuming its natural instincts, bit its benefactor, inflicting on him a mortal wound.
"Oh," cried the Farmer with his last breath, "I am rightly served for helping a scoundrel."
"A Snake in the grass
will be a Snake in the bosom." |
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