You never realize how expensive the trip is when you are getting a ride from someone else.

Let’s face it; many are carrying the weight of others silently. If this speaks to you then you are to be commended and applauded for faithfully and quietly helping someone along the way. At issue is making sure it is their way. You cannot forever carry two cases for one nights stay at the inn. At some point you must allow, or dare I say force, that other person to receive the enlightenment, joy, and exercise associated with carrying their own wares.

As children we want according to our expense. As children that expense is zero so we tend to want “it all”. We did not have the burden or luxury, depending on your adult perspective, of having to worry about the price of “it all”. My children often enter stores and, in cadence, commence their request to have me and their mother purchase the entire contents of the store to satisfy their minimal and sporadic spans of attention. They find it egregious that we may have the audacity to utter the term “NO”. This is expected from children that have no earthly or cosmic perception of the cost. Along with not understanding the cost, they are also indifferent to the sacrifices and/or the labor put into being able to happily enter the shop and exchange products for money. We do not expect them to. They are kids of course and the matters of the world such as these are due in right time to be given to them.

It will one day be their times to practice this same ritual with their offspring. No doubt they will have an adult appreciation for the times we had to tell them “NO”. There is that word again. You see they will be in their right element as adults to understand that the time has come for them to develop an appreciation for an understanding of what it feels like when it is their time to give the ride to their children. They will, no doubt, make sure their children enjoy and understand fully what it is to be a child with little to no worry. After all, we all aspire to give our children better lives than we had.

As an adult, the child-like thinking is not so fly. Many adults still find it hard to understand that the ride is expensive to someone. If you are not paying for your seat in the truck, someone else is burdened with paying twice the fair. The greatest things in life are truly free; it is just the rest of it that you have to pay for. It seems that many people were never given that “NO” by their parents or they were never made to eventually learn that the trip is only cheap or free because someone else is paying your way. It indeed cost. It maybe that you just don’t pay your part to ride in comfort while someone else is worrying about how to get you there at their expense. I say let these people stand in the sun until they get their own busfare and work their way up to their own ride. I had to and they are no better than me, I PROMISE! If you are paying the emotional, spiritual, psychological, or financial cost for an able bodied adult…STOP IT. They will be ill prepared if and when your car has no more room in it because of all of your own “Stuff” that requires the space that they have abused and occupied for so long.