Fraga, Huesca
January 19
Governments repeat over and over again the famous old history about the ‘welfare state up to the point that many people have believed it and had a great disappointment.
This is what happened to my colleague who works in an office of the State Administration and about five years ago she told me that she wished to retire to enjoy the welfare state and now next to the retirement she has terminal cancer.
We can think it is just a case of bad luck but it has made me thinking. If we look what makes us happy we realize that happiness is very fleeting and normal life goes in a different way, and we find that every day we have to face unpleasant and many times painful things with which we live together and, or we accept them, or become in the most unhappy people.
The welfare state is like assuming that we are going to achieve the heaven on earth and this is impossible. Pleasures are always very momentary, and sometimes leave us a quite unpleasant taste, such as another friend who went on a Mediterranean cruise thinking it would be the best and spent most of the days vomiting due to the seasickness provoked by the rolling waves of the transatlantic.
In addition, the welfare state for whom? It will be for those who can work and earn a decent salary, because for the millions of unemployment that sounds like a joke, because they know well that the politicians that proclaim it have big salaries.
Isabel Costa
