In the early hours of the morning, the alarm clock wakes us up to remind us that there is another day ahead of us, as challenging as it can be to be born in a country whose preamble to the constitution states “to pave the way for a socialist society, respecting the will of the Portuguese people”.
Young people go to work by train, if they are lucky enough to have a train station nearby. For those who do have one, it is a matter of faith that they will not be hit by a strike that prevents them from getting there.
With an iron will to maintain the Iberian gauge, the government knows that competition will be annihilated in this way. Renfe even wants it. But it is necessary to protect CP and everything it hides.
Fortunately, for us young people, the socialist government will “give” the monthly pass until the age of 23. A particularly useful measure when there are no long weekends, commemorative dates, weather conditions that invite swimming and all those conditions that usually paralyze the CP.
But what can we do besides paying CP and having the esoteric belief that we can have access to rail transport?
Pay for fuel to drive to work.
But on television, the people in charge tell us that we have to protect the environment, that it’s all the effect of global warming… that we have to compensate for the damage…
What is left for us to do?
Pay: ISP, ISV, IUC…
But it doesn’t matter. Maybe the State will put the money I had no choice in handing over to good use.
But suddenly I notice that there are no teachers or doctors, because there was a considered choice between a “public” ideological system and not a look at the big picture of responding to needs regardless of who provides them. The idea is to eliminate everything that may be outside the state sphere. The idea is to eliminate competition and feed this great “savior and benefactor” monopoly.
No teachers, no doctors… how lucky we are if we can at least opt for a private, almost illegal system to follow our path…
But what is left for us?
Pay. What we use, and what we don’t use. How selfish it would be not to do it! Even if there is no other option.
But the salary is so little. Of the €1,111 that the boss paid, we only see €946.
We pay taxes that we didn’t ask for, that serve what doesn’t serve us…
But they are used to pay the 60 members of the 23rd Portuguese government, including ministers and secretaries of state, most of whom are redundant and useless.
We are told that where there is a need, there is a right. I do not agree with this premise, because no artificial right should weigh on my shoulders, because my natural right to life allows me free will. And in the free will of many of us, the young and even the not so young, we have fought against everything to escape deeply adverse conditions, caused by a
system that ignores merit.
“Don’t be selfish, you could be worse off.”
I could, but so could the 60 members that make up the government and that I don’t need and this heavy Socialist State that we support and that forces us to live at our parents’ house at 30.
And we ask ourselves, what could we be? What could we have? How could we help the world move forward if socialism did not clip our wings? Where could young Portuguese people go?
The only wings within our reach are those of an airplane, in an airport that reflects the country, which is no longer useful and nothing has changed since 1969.
He says that everything will improve now that the Prime Minister has some new measures to encourage young people. And why should I dream about the United Kingdom, when the socialists are now even going to give me back my tuition fees? Apparently it is €697 per year. It almost makes up for the average salary of £2,041 in the United Kingdom, where 12,000 young people like me emigrated last year.
We young people have already realized this.
Pay… we offer.
PS: We don’t even like youth hostels that much.