My main concern is....will we be strong enough spiritually, emotionally and physically to handle changes mankind or the universe could decide to sends this direction. We have become soft, whiners, physically lazy for the most part, dependent upon constant amusement, distraction from reality, disengaged from things considered unpleasant. We coddle our children, over protect them out of safety concerns, feel responsible to make them "happy", expect little from them. We unintentionally destroy any innate work ethic, encourage the easy way out, yet expect great reward, admiration for simply being. Many are soft, out of shape, lack a sense of "stick-to-it", self discipline.
This morning I saw a programs on Planet Green, which brought home how simple life is in the good old USA. Example: in Japan workers in the Tuna industry put in extremely long hours,(until the fish are gone,usually 12 -14 hours), standing side by side, silently, robot like, scraping, cleaning tuna in 90 degree rooms. They must complete 600 cans each, or be sent back to the gutting room, far more unpleasant. For this each worker is paid the equivalent of $5.00, that's right...$5.00 a day!
Now, I am not for a second suggesting we do anything like that, but I do feel we need to buck up if this country is going to remain the one I grew up with, still the best place to be. We need to find our way back to pride in ourselves and the work we do. We have to stop the direction taken during the past decade of self absorption, laziness, entitlement mentality. Strength, endurance, motivation, faith, commitment, family support, community involvement must return to the average home, business, political arenas if we are to survive anything, forget 2012.
So, what can you do? Become stronger, in every sense, positive in direction and scope, help ensure the survival of your family, the USA, perhaps the world. Push yourself and loved ones, create endurance, deepen respect for life, face adversity with courage no matter where it comes from. Live an example of strength, optimism, belief, look for opportunity to grow, become stronger within yourself, teach gratitude, self sacrifice, teamwork, leadership, love.
Be thankful....appreciate your can of tuna, the sacrifices other make so you may live and thrive.
Decide 2012 or any other obstacle presented can be survived, overcome, perhaps even provide opportunity, a new direction, stay positive.
The Horses
ReplyDeleteBarely a twelvemonth after
The seven days war that put the world to sleep,
Late in the evening the strange horses came.
By then we had made our covenant with silence,
But in the first few days it was so still
We listened to our breathing and were afraid.
On the second day
The radios failed; we turned the knobs; no answer.
On the third day a warship passed us, heading north,
Dead bodies piled on the deck. On the sixth day
A plane plunged over us into the sea. Thereafter
Nothing. The radios dumb;
And still they stand in corners of our kitchens,
And stand, perhaps, turned on, in a million rooms
All over the world. But now if they should speak,
If on a sudden they should speak again,
If on the stroke of noon a voice should speak,
We would not listen, we would not let it bring
That old bad world that swallowed its children quick
At one great gulp. We would not have it again.
Sometimes we think of the nations lying asleep,
Curled blindly in impenetrable sorrow,
And then the thought confounds us with its strangeness.
The tractors lie about our fields; at evening
They look like dank sea-monsters couched and waiting.
We leave them where they are and let them rust:
‘They’ll molder away and be like other loam.’
We make our oxen drag our rusty plows,
Long laid aside. We have gone back
Far past our fathers’ land.
And then, that evening
Late in the summer the strange horses came.
We heard a distant tapping on the road,
A deepening drumming; it stopped, went on again
And at the corner changed to hollow thunder.
We saw the heads
Like a wild wave charging and were afraid.
We had sold our horses in our fathers’ time
To buy new tractors. Now they were strange to us
As fabulous steeds set on an ancient shield.
Or illustrations in a book of knights.
We did not dare go near them. Yet they waited,
Stubborn and shy, as if they had been sent
By an old command to find our whereabouts
And that long-lost archaic companionship.
In the first moment we had never a thought
That they were creatures to be owned and used.
Among them were some half a dozen colts
Dropped in some wilderness of the broken world,
Yet new as if they had come from their own Eden.
Since then they have pulled our plows and borne our loads
But that free servitude still can pierce our hearts.
Our life is changed; their coming our beginning.
Edwin Muir
Wow, good, very good. Thanks for sharing.
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