Tortoise and Hare
Here is a story that has been around for a long time and it was written by Aesop. This story was written around 6 century BCE, but showed up in Latin in the 16th century. It is a neat story that you can learn a lot about yourself and others. But I chose this story to compare it to us “United States” and how we conceive what we think we are to what we really are. This country was once a great country and still can be, but the people have this image of us that is no longer the true image. Our image of honor and integrity has long been soured, over self-inflated and self-imposed that it has died decades ago.
Somewhere in the 60’s and 70’s we started to put our own self interested first instead of this county and planet. We made a lot of good decisions on the direction and goals we set and made. But “ISM” took over and the country and planet started to take a back seat while we were driving into our future. We led the world in so many ways; education, healthcare, technology, science, food production and more. We did not think we could be over taken by anybody else so we stop looking into the future. We only looked in to the rearview mirror to see what we had done and to who.
So instead of staying on the path of good decisions and goals for a solid future, we started straying of the main path for an instant self-gratification. To me, we are decades behind where we should be in so many areas. It has been said that the greatest generation today was the one that fought in WW2 and I do believe that. The generations of today are what I refer as “Santa Claus kids” because they believe everything that their parents and media tell them to think, say and do. They do not have the understanding, exposure or teachings to preserve this country, much less pass it down.
The real problem, issue started with people in the 60 to 70 age group. Those parents gave them a lot because on what they went thru growing up. But each generation keeps giving their own offspring more and more and so on. This is where the problem started and those offspring did not stop taking or stop to look around. Their parents kept preparing the path for their children so they would not to look into the future. So, in a sad way, those parents where like the very first self-driving car. They had no idea of where it “the car” was going or what it took to get where they are now.
Now all of the other countries “tortoise” has learned from us by watching us, also we have taught and educated them on how we do things to better themselves just so we can make a quick dollar. In so many ways they are now years/decades ahead of us and I do not know if we can recover. What is sad is that this new generation thinks this road they are on is the future and they are in the new “Jetson’s” age, they are not. To fix this problem, it is going to take a lot of self-discipline, sacrifices and dedication to correct it and fix it. Progress is not just a list of accomplishments on what you have or built, but it is also a list of problems that you no longer have or deal with! Our accomplishments are not what we think they are!
R. Fleharty