Squandered Opportunities

I had a friend of a friend who I’ll call Derrick.  I first met Derrick in 2015 when he was the best man at my friend’s wedding.  Derrick and my friend were college roommates and they played football together.  Derrick went on to play in the NFL after they both graduated.  He was a talented singer and guitar player and he sang at the reception.  He was good looking, charismatic, and easy to talk to.  Derrick had the attention of all the single ladies at the party which was something he was used to.  I met him a few more times over the years and kept up with his life through stories my friend told me. 

Derrick left the NFL after six seasons and bounced around from place to place.  The minimum salary for an NFL player in 2015 was $435,000 dollars so he didn’t need to find work right away.  He started partying and abusing alcohol and drugs.  He never settled into a long-term relationship, had children, worked a real job, or did anything to grow up.  Derrick decided to live like a college party boy instead of taking on responsibility and commitment.  He criticized his friends who chose traditional lives, married, and had children.  Derrick put his natural talents to work at bars and clubs so he could bring home a new woman every night instead of settling down and putting those talents to work in service of a family.  As time went on, Derrick’s situation got worse and it became obvious to his closest friends he was developing an opioid addiction.  Pretty soon he started reaching out to his friends to ask for money and he lashed out in anger towards anyone who suggested he had a problem and needed help.  Last month, Derrick was found dead of a fentanyl overdose in a back alley.  He was 36 years old.

Derrick’s story is the story of California personified.  California is the best place on the planet by any metric.  California has an economy that would be the fifth largest in the world if it were its own country.  Here in the Central Valley we supply the nation’s food and energy with farming, ranching and oil production.  Silicon Valley is the tech center of the world.  Movies and television shows that influence international culture are all created in Hollywood.  We have nearly all the ports on the west coast which are international trade hubs.  Beaches, mountains, forests, and deserts.  You can go snow skiing in the morning and enjoy the ocean breeze in the afternoon.  When the first Americans citizens settled here there was literally gold all over the ground.  For our elected officials, this should be governing on easy mode.

Despite all our advantages, our residents are fleeing to Boise, Fort Worth, Nashville, and many other places that aren’t here.  Our population is declining for the first time since they started picking up the gold on the ground at Sutter’s Mill.  A $68 billion-dollar deficit, high income and sales taxes, five dollar a gallon gas, mentally ill drug addicts wandering the streets, disease filled shanti towns in our public spaces, a blind eye to criminal behavior, and the emptying of our prisons back into our population are just a few of the reasons people want to leave. The idea we can just spend more money on social programs, ignore “low-level” crime, stop putting criminals in prison, and end up with anything else than a decaying state is an example of our leaders’ immature and unrealistic world view.  Instead of wasting time virtue signaling and criticizing Florida’s leadership, maybe our leaders should focus on fiscal responsibility and the safety and security of our citizens.

What Derrick and California have in common is both were overflowing with talent, resources, and opportunity.  Both were inclined to shirk duty and responsibility in exchange for immature short-term gratification and surface level popularity.  Like Derrick, our leaders look at other states as backwards and out of touch despite the obvious chaos and disorder inside our own borders.  Its time our leaders grow up and take responsibility for the lives of our people before we wind up in the metaphorical back alley.

This was the backpack containing all of Derrick’s possessions when he died. This was all he had left.