The other day the kids and I were watching Star Trek The Throwback Edition. As in not the most recent movie, but The Wrath of Khan and The Search for Spock. The same two movies which elicited “Were these made in the 1700′s” by my apparent movie guru 10-year old daughter when she saw the special effects. I suppose movie magic from the 80′s for her is akin to the movie magic from the 60′s as in stop-action  by Ray Harryhausen of Jason and the Argonauts, Clash of the Titans and Sinbad (if you haven’t seen any of those, you really should just for pop culture sake!)

But I’m not here to talk about movies. I’m here to talk about something I have to do but don’t want to do.

In Star Trek (Spoilers – don’t read on if you haven’t seen the movies)

… Spock sacrifices his life to save the crew of the Enterprise. He says that doing so embodies the design of self-sacrifice for the greater good: “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few” or something like that. Google it. Anyhoo, Jim Kirk comes to realize that once in a while, the need of the one outweighs the need of the many and blah blah good karma happy thoughts to all.

Today I’m signing a paper. It’s a paper I don’t want to sign. I don’t want to sign it because I feel I’m selling out – myself and my friends. Of whom I feel all have in some way or another have been wronged – by gossip, negativity, all those toxic things that are hurtful and damaging. I’m the one who will say – Hey I’m going to stick up for everyone regardless of the consequences. Someone has to!

The problem here – I have kids. Two of em to be exact. So doing this thing I don’t want to do will be better for them. It pretty much means an extra paycheck which will cover our rent for the month. That’s pretty important. I suppose feeding and sheltering my kids always trumps doing the ‘right’ thing or standing up for myself or others.

So I gotta do what I gotta do. The needs of my kids outweigh the needs of me or anyone else.

But, not all is lost and I’m sure there will be a time when sticking up and speaking up will be appropriate. And believe you me, I’m going to have a lot of satisfaction in doing it.