Adapt, Improvise and Overcome
World history has shown us that many times when the norm of a particular culture drastically changes, the shape of national thoughts, mores, and governmental structures have also changed. We just could be on the ground floor of one of these national transformations right now.
Today our “American Dream” is at risk in every neighborhood from coast-to-coast. It’s not just a newspaper headline anymore, it’s actually happening to us. I have seen many communities lose their sense of identity as families watch other families they have known for years suffer foreclosure on their homes. Vacant homes are not what we ever imagined the “American Dream” to be; it’s not how we thought this story would end. We, as Americans, have always worked hard to obtain this “dream” but now the unemployment rate has hit 9.4 percent and so many qualified and dedicated individuals are out of work. The “dream” seems to be slipping away from us and there’s not a thing we can do about it.
We, the people of a “former” America used to graduate from school, go to work for a company for 40 years, retire and live the rest of their days on a corporate pension in a paid off house. That just isn’t the case anymore. The one thing that many elderly American’s will be bringing with them into retirement is their mortgage. This will place a real burden on their fixed income.
But wait just a minute….it just came to mind that the American Dream was never about greed, fortune or lofty positions. It was always about a promise that tomorrow could be better; a thought that we could leave an even better life for our children and our grandchildren. That’s the problem. Hey, we need to remember that we can lose our homes and just get another one. That’s not even an issue. The one thing we can’t lose is our values and our sense of family and community. That cannot happen or the dream is dead. We are Americans; we can always turn the situation around.
We just celebrated the 65th anniversary of D-Day. Those were tough times. Following a decade of depression, we were suddenly forced into a World War that took millions of our precious lives. Those left behind willingly took jobs in aircraft manufacturing plants, grew their own gardens in the backyard in order to eat, and dealt with a rationing system that forced them to do without more than not. Maybe it’s time for all of us, as an American population, to get tough. You have to admit, we’ve gotten soft. I’d rather my family not experience hard times for one moment but these are challenging times and we all need to get strong. All I’m saying is we need to start to adapt, improvise and overcome. That’s what I learned as a young recruit in the U.S. Marine Corps and now these attributes are making it around full circle into my personal life.
No matter who is in control of the U.S. government, our population is in a constant state of complaint. So, I think it’s time to shift the focus from the government to our personal lives. Let’s all start to take more responsibility for what is happening in our lives. If you look closely, I think you’ll find more good things happening than bad things. Try it. Write down three good things that happened to you today. Stop the constant complaining and consider what is going right in life. It will be better for you, your family, your neighborhood and your country. We can all do this – allow history to repeat itself and allow the “tried and true” American spirit to bring us to new heights from this day forward.
