FREEDOM: What else are we losing?

Have you noticed that people seem more stressed lately? Life just is not fun anymore for a lot of us. Granted, with the economy the way it is, I can understand people’s concerns, but I have begun to wonder if there is not something deeper to their current state of gloom.

As I watch and study people’s reactions to the current state of our world, I have noticed something in the hearts of Americans that I have never seen before, and this realization scares me to death! We have become apathetic. For the first time in the history of our country, I am hearing more “I don’t cares” or “I just have to look after myself and my family” or “Sure, I am concerned, but I just don’t have time to worry or get involved”. Simply put, this attitude is un-American. I would even venture to say that it is anti-American.

There is a core freedom that has been stripped from the American population and that freedom is our freedom to care: to care about those around us, to care about our futures, to care about our children’s future. We have bought into the idea that the Government is taking care of us so we don’t have to worry. They will provide for our future; we just need to worry about ourselves. Just in case I am not being clear, let me clarify that I am saying we as Americans have traded in our honor and our sacred privilege to help those around us and we have become selfish. We have decided that being politically correct is more important than simply being correct. We would rather look the other way in the face of opposition than stand on the principles that, for so many generations, have made this country great. We are told that it is wrong for us to share our beliefs, to talk about our views, or to care about politics in general. Do we really believe that? Do we really buy into the fact that in order to be a good American we must stay silent? More importantly, the apathy that we are taught to have at work and at school has caused us to stop looking around for ways to help. Our hearts have hardened for the sake of our jobs or our grades and the result is that we have forgotten what it means to care to the point that to even hear someone have passion raises red flags in our brainwashed minds.

What is this apathy doing to our society? Because we have been told not to care, we don’t know our neighbors. “How are you doing?” has become a greeting rather than a question. We busy ourselves with selfish pursuits, never stopping to ponder the consequences that our lack of caring has upon ourselves and those around us.
We can talk about political change until we’re blue in the face but until we jumpstart our ability to care, change will be impossible. Ultimately our selfish, politically-correct, self-preserving, auto-pilot, “don’t get in my way”, “I can’t wait till the end of the week”, mindset gives no room for progress, and even less room for hope. In the end we are stressed, not because we have too many meetings, not enough money, and too large of a mortgage: we are stressed because we are alone. You don’t care about your neighbor and your neighbor does not even know your name, and that, my friends, is not how we were made to live. Regardless of what pop culture tells us, the important part in life is not how high you climb the ladder. The real meaning of life, of progress, of success, is how many steps we did not take because we stopped to help up the person next to us.

Let’s take back our freedom to care even if it means (yes, I will say the scary word) “sacrificing.