Are we fearful or hopeful?

So two weeks ago I went on about a few questions that I have about our American life.  I know it may have sounded a bit fatalistic and pessimistic but the reality for many in this country is that we are headed in the wrong direction as a country, as a society and as a leader in the global community.  That leaves me thinking about some answers to my burning questions.

Fear has almost become a national pastime.  Forget baseball, apple pie and winning the war.  That's old school.  Too simple for this new century.  Too boring for our fast-paced, phone app-driven world.  At the risk of sounding too old school, I do remember starting my information systems major in undergraduate school and liking the instant gratification of watching a program actually work.  I'm sure that many in the trades get this same feeling.  Sweating pipe and seeing no leaks.  Building a block wall with your bare hands.  Seeing the light turn on and brighten a room, making it more of a home.  Yet today, we have an insatiable thirst to know everything right now.  And yet we are willing to find the information source that supports our own personal belief structures.  If we think that another 9-11 style attack is imminent, then we listen and watch to find support for that construct.  If we think that there is a conspiracy of global corporate megalomaniacs making the world dance like Pinocchio, then we'll look to the Illuminati and Knights Templar to support that we have no control over our own lives.

While Americans have collectively lost $1.2 trillion in wealth over the past couple of years due to the housing bubble annihilation, most of us are still working, many still have a house over our heads and have food on our tables at the end of the day.  Amazingly, businesses are still being started, restaurants are still packing them in and yet we whine.  Government is doing too much, too little, not the right thing or definitely the wrong thing while lining their own pockets.  Here's the thing - everyone is probably right and yet we operate and have opinions that we think that majority rules in this country.  Wake up America - this is a republic not a democracy!  We elect officials that represent us.  If you don't like them, we all have the right to vote for someone else.  But I digress - what are we really afraid of? 

For many decades we have been "a little people, greedy, barbarous and cruel" (Lawerence of Arabia, if you must ask) and we have ingrained in our psyche that all of our problems are due to the other guy, the other organization, the other company, the other politician, the other country - all making it so hard on us.  I say it's time that we stop spending our energy blaming others and start looking within.  How many families are fractured over relatively small issues?  What has happened to forgiveness?  If we can't resolve our family issues, how can we expect to solve bigger issues?  I say look within to find the courage, the strength, the know-how, the smarts to figure it out for ourselves, our families and our communities.  Only then will fear of the outside world begin to fall away and can true prosperity be returned to our country and our world.  I challenge you to look to the sacrifice that Marines made on Iwo Jima in 1945 (over 20,000 casualties) and then I think you will see that you really don't have much to fear in these amazing times in this promising century.