In my senior
year of high school, a realization hit me with the subtlety of a nuclear blast. It suddenly occurred to
me that I was going to have to figure out what I was going to do after I graduated from high school.
Up to that point, I talked of
big plans and dreams but didn’t really put a plan together to pursue them. I was to busy working,
flirting, and chilling.
In
those days, much like today, we weren’t exactly being set up to believe that we were facing a rosy future with what
we were seeing on the news and the required reading in school. Some of this feeling came from the pains
of double digit inflation and tensions beginning to percolate in the Middle East.
Added to the mix was the required
reading in our literature classes of such classics as “1984” and “Animal Farm”. Reading
these classics with Watergate still very fresh in everyone’s minds and skyrocketing inflation and the price of gold
beginning to make its way to then record highs, we developed the feeling that there was going to be anarchy and blood in the
streets of our nation.
As we faced our futures towards the tail end of our teen years, we gulped. We
began, for once, to take a serious look at our futures while listening to music like David Bowie’s “1984”
playing in the background. How’s that for influencing our outlook for the future? Though
Bowie didn’t mention Orwell, our pessimistic outlook of our future could easily be summarized with the words of that
song.
I remember
well when one of my best friends made plans to enroll in the military after we graduated. He said to me
with a certain smugness, “Randy, while you and everybody else are in the food lines, I will be living in base housing
and getting ‘three squares’ a day.” Dave’s feeling was a direct result of his step-dad’s
post-depression upbringing and influence on Dave’s career planning in addition to the aforementioned gloom and doom
in the air.
Much
like its namesake song, 1984 came and went. And, what do you know? We didn’t have to endure another
Great Depression. Tough times? Of course. But the years ticked along with amazing events
and developments for mankind. We became stronger and better.
Just like our teen years, we can
often find ourselves in a state of negative self talk, predicting that our worst fears are about to be upon us.
I know that when I’m faced with a particular crisis such as job loss, my car begins to make unfamiliar noise,
or a deadline for an article is breathing down my neck, I downshift to “negative” and feel that the end is near.
But, hold and be low, I live to tell (if not laugh) about my fears.
It’s like Franklin D. Roosevelt said in his famous inaugural,
Depression-era speech that our grandparents heard and, no doubt, drummed into our parents’ head: The only thing we have
to fear is fear itself. Our parents and grandparents experienced tough times then but they lived to tell us (and tell us,
and tell us) all about it. And they’re words worth taking to heart.
We have, will, and are, no doubt, facing our own tough times
as individuals, a nation and a planet. But we’re made of sterner stuff and we will get through these trying times.
We will face the challenges and soundly defeat them. However, we will suffer great defeat if we
listen to the negative naysayers who spew forth their poison today. Their words can pollute our minds with
negativity if we let them. Taking his words slightly out of context, I’ll again quote Mr. Bowie:
“Beware the savage jaw of 1984”. Let’s not give space in our mental real estate to what is often called
“stinkin’ thinkin’”. Let’s choose to move positively forward.
I honestly believe that, if we
as individuals, first, and as a country, second, make sound decisions that do not sell our futures down the river; if we remember
the foundations of our upbringing as individuals and, as a country, remember the incredible wisdom that our founding fathers
built into that incredible document called the Constitution, and not waiver from it; we have it within our grasp to build
towards even better and brighter days ahead.
