The Kind-Hearted Smart Aleck

When the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was initially passed, I had mixed feelings. Like a lot of progressives, I had hoped for a more progressive healthcare reform bill, yet was pleased we were showing signs of slowly progressing on the matter, and knew it would have been next to impossible for my "ideal" healthcare law to have passed both houses of Congress on its way to the president's desk for signage. In hindsight, though, while I'd still love to see the ACA become more progressive, I'm thrilled it was passed and signed into law. It's said regardless of a person's age, gender, race, creed, or orientation, we all have baggage. Unfortunately, most of my baggage comes in the form of health problems. I started suffering from seizures at a very young age and had a grand mal when I was 18, at which point the doctors spotted a brain tumor. I underwent surgery to remove the tumor four years later. Between 2009 and 2011 I suffered from a strange virus which last...

As regular readers should know by now, while I personally don't care what one's religious beliefs are, I myself am not religious. I'm fascinated by religion, have read about and studied several from around the world, but in the end, there hasn't been one which has convinced me it's more valid than all the others. Given that, I got into a discussion with a rather religious individual over the weekend and, while I know she meant well with her words, they still kind of rubbed me the wrong way. We were discussing health ordeals, and when I informed her I was once riddled with a brain tumor and underwent surgery to remove it, she kept repeating the line, "God's looking out for you" and "God's got plans for you!" I know people mean well when they say such things, yet whenever I hear these lines, an array of questions come to mind, such as: "Does this mean God wasn't looking out for the 3-year-old that was shot and killed the other d...

Between 13 and 18 years ago, I was quite the glass-is-half-empty kind of guy. When someone presented me with a situation, I'd typically picture it in a more negative light than the average person. When it came to grades, how I did on a test, how I'd do with a presentation, what a girl would say if I asked her out, etc., I usually expected the worst. My reasoning? If the worst did occur, the less painful the blow would be. My father seemed to understand this philosophy, but my mother certainly didn't and in hindsight, neither do I. Now, I can semi-understand what I was getting at with my "expect-the-worst" attitude. I was assuming there would be a certain level of disappointment when I learned of the event's final results, so since I felt it was inevitable I would fall, I wanted to make certain the fall only pained me for a short period of time as opposed to many days, weeks or months. But, like I said at the outset, I can no longer understand this train of t...