RUSH: Michael in Memphis. Welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Thank you, sir. I’m a brand-new listener to your show, but I will be faithful. I hope my cell phone battery doesn’t die.
RUSH: How did you find the program, Michael?
CALLER: I got a new job and the guy that I was replacing to train me, he was a faithful listener and after lunch every day he said, “I gotta have my Rush, man,” and he got me hooked.
RUSH: Way to go, way to be. I love hearing that kind of story. Welcome to the light. Welcome home.
CALLER: Well, thank you, sir. Thank you. I’ll get right to the point. I’m 22 years old. After high school my parents couldn’t pay for my college so I got a job and I paid for my own college, and now I’m working and my girlfriend is working two jobs trying to pay off her student loans because we believe that God said pay off your debts, and now we’ve got all these people that are trying to get it for free, that don’t want to work, they’re just going to rallies and trying to get all this stuff for free, and that makes all these collection agencies and stuff crank down harder on the people who are trying to be honest, who are trying to pay their stuff. And it’s very frustrating. We want to get married but we’re having to push that off because we don’t have as much money because we gotta pay for these student loans. I mean it would be totally easy for us to just say, “Oh, we’ll just wait for the government to pay it off. We’ll go ahead and just get more and more in debt and let the government pay all of it like the normal people do.”
RUSH: Well, you don’t sound like the kind that’s gonna do that, and you also don’t sound like the kind of guy that wants to be in the position of owing the government the rest of your life if they do that for you.
CALLER: Oh, definitely not.
RUSH: Well, how much do you owe?
CALLER: Close to $15,000.
RUSH: Both of you together owe 15,000?
CALLER: No, just her. I worked and I went to a cheaper college and mine’s already paid off, but she’s got two student loans and hers combined will be about $15,000.
RUSH: Wow. Did you say she’s working two jobs?
CALLER: Yeah. Yeah, she’s working six days a week.
RUSH: Well, I have to tell you, I applaud you. This is called accepting responsibility. And it’s very rare. It’s not very rare, but it’s way too rare. You have assumed some obligations and you’re assuming the responsibility for dealing with it, and believe me, you’re gonna be much better off the rest of your life dealing with it this way, having this attitude about it. There are always going to be freeloaders and there are always gonna be people who feel entitled to it. You’re always gonna be surrounded by people who may have more than you do, by the way, at various stages of your life who still feel entitled to it.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: I was just thinking that. Folks, here we have a young man from Memphis who is calling, and he’s telling us that he’s delaying things in life that he wants in order to meet his financial obligations, pay off his student loans. And how many of you out there went, “Way to go, way to go.” It’s that rare that we feel like we have to stop and applaud it, whereas it ought to be as normal as getting up every morning. But our culture has become degraded and corrupted, that the action that you take stands out because it doesn’t appear to be the norm anymore. You’re to be applauded for it nevertheless, don’t misunderstand.
CALLER: Yeah. It’s so sad, you know, I look at these people that get so angry —
RUSH: Don’t. Let me tell you something. That can drive you crazy, and if you let it, it will drive you crazy. That’s gonna happen your whole life. There’s always going to be somebody who has more than you do. There’s always going to be somebody that appears to be not working nearly as hard as you are. There is always going to be the appearance of unfairness or injustice in an arena and in an atmosphere where you expect fairness to exist. And it can make you bitter if you allow it to take over. Those are things that you can’t control and if you allow them to bother you, they’re gonna eat you alive.
You have to focus, like you’re doing now, on your responsibilities, doing the best you can, and, believe me, in the long run you’re gonna be fine and you’re gonna be much better off. But if you allow yourself to be embittered by this stuff — and, by the way, it’s very hard not to, and the Democrat Party has made big gains by going to people just like you and telling you that you ought to vote for the Democrats because these people you see — except their enemy are the rich, not the freeloaders. You’re upset at the freeloaders. The Democrat Party’s enemies are the rich, and they come to people like you say, “Vote for us, we’re gonna stick it to them.” That will not make your life any better and will not change your circumstances at all if these people all of a sudden had to start paying for what they’re now getting for nothing, or if they get for nothing what they’re asking for. It isn’t going to change anything about your life. That’s totally within your purview and your control. And that’s what you need to focus on.
There’s always gonna be somebody who has more. There’s always gonna be somebody who seemingly has it easier. There’s always gonna be somebody that has a better advantage than you do. There’s always gonna be injustice. There’s always gonna be the sense of unfairness. It’s life. And you’ve got such a great head start keeping your head on straight dealing with it. Don’t become embittered by this. It’s perfectly fine to be angry by it and to note it and to say I don’t want those kind of values in my life, I don’t want to be a freeloader, I don’t want to be marching down the street asking for somebody else to give me something. I want to make my own way. It’s perfectly fine to have disrespect for those people. But don’t let it eat you up to the point it changes who you are.