Smarten Up – Let's Be Grateful, America

We need a little more gratitude out there. So many of us are so blessed and so fortunate and yet we – and that includes me – fail to take inventory of all that we have. 

This column and this place on the web have provided me a lot of enjoyment and fulfillment and reward. Right at the top of all those pluses is the community of discussion and reflection about how, for so many of us – whether we came from a family of modest means or not – there was tremendous levels of fun, blessings, and fortune in growing up in Easton.  

We are grateful.  

But I see and listen to so much complaining and moaning out there. Now, I don’t want to deprive anybody any of this activity – and no matter how sweet things are in our lives, it is tough not to do all of it a bit.  But, for the most part, please, leave the complaining and moaning to those who have a very good reason to do so. 

One of my favorite Mike Barnicle columns, when he wrote for the Boston Globe, is the one that ran in the Globe on May 21, 1991.  It is titled, “Hey, it could be worse.”  Mr. Barnicle had that right.  Here are the first two paragraphs of the column:

Tell me it's not a great country: We have a high sky today, built of the clearest of blues. Clouds are complete strangers. The sun washes each step and a warm breeze blows through the town like nature's applause.

There's plenty to be thankful about and even more items to treasure if you want to take the time to think about it. To start with, there's the fact you woke up this morning and did not require some undertaker to adjust your collar.

Then Mr. Barnicle describes other things for which we should be grateful – including “iced coffee,” “a full plate of baseball,” “park benches,” “book stores,” it being “the eve of summer and the knowledge that lying about golf scores is not an indictable offense,” and not being “one of those sleazebag lawyers who advertise on TV.”

In the column, Mr. Barnicle told the story of two women, from out of town, who had recently been driving in Boston when their car broke down at two in the morning on the corner of Mass Ave. and Beacon Street.  It could have easily turned out bad, very bad.  But it didn’t, because a friendly cabdriver pulled over.  He called a tow truck, bought the women hot chocolate, and stayed with them until they had things figured out.  He didn’t ask for money or a date; he just helped. 

Let’s be grateful. 

We have young men and women – not much older than kids – on the other side of the world fighting and trying to stay alive amid bombs, bullets, scorching heat, and unfathomable suffering and fear.  Almost none of the “problems” that irk us are remotely close to moving across their radar screens. 

They serve, first and foremost, for the man and woman on their left – and the man or woman on their right.  They don’t have much time to watch American Idol or the Bachelor or Bachelorette or reruns of Fear Factor.  I kind of have a feeling that sitting in a traffic jam, waiting in a line in the convenience store as that dude up front is buying 50 scratch tickets, and kicking back and watching David Ortiz pop up with the game on the line would feel quite good to them right now.

And, another thing, they aren’t serving and sacrificing for politicians or political ideology back home. This is important to get a hold of. For here in America, I see a tremendous amount of partisan and nasty and rude squabbling and name calling in the public sphere. Partisan and squabbling aren’t the problem – the problem is nasty, rude, and name calling. 

I slant politically to the right, and I am a conservative – and while I have sunk to the nasty, rude, and name calling in the past, I am fairly done with that now. I enjoy talking about and debating politics and social issues – but I seek to do so only civilly and respectfully.   

I have never cared that much, in the relationships I have had in my life, what are someone’s political or religious beliefs. It's just not a big deal.  

Oftentimes when we get bitter – and we don’t appreciate what we have – is when we grab a hold of politics and societal issues and use them as as fuel to rant and rave, look for scapegoats, and blame someone in Washington D.C. for our problems.  What really gets me is the people who make so much negative noise, yet who don’t work to improve life, or even offer a modicum of constructive suggestions and criticism.  

Oh – believe me – I think all of us should be engaged and vocal and work hard to improve society – and I am all for righteous indignation – but, really, get a grip, there is so much good going on in the U.S.A. 

I will also say this – nature or God or whatever, or whomever, you feel runs things, presides over a universe in which sickness, misfortune, tragedy, pain, and heartbreak comes to Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals and moderates – and in preventing and doing our best to deal with the hurt, we will need to set aside whether someone voted for Barack Obama or John McCain. 

I am grateful for living here, and understand a truth, that my mother has articulated in a different way, that I have won the cosmic lottery by being born in this land. 

I watched a documentary the other night about North Korea. A focus of the story line was Dr. Sanduk Ruit, a Nepali eye surgeon who led a humanitarian medical mission to North Korea, an isolated nation which is run and held hostage by a brutal communist dictatorship. While in North Korea, over 10 days time, Dr. Ruit performed a simple surgery – readily available in the U.S. – on about 1000 people, across the age spectrum, to restore the sight of those who had been made blind by cataracts, many of which were the result of bad nutrition and other elements of harsh living and deprivation.  

I was almost transfixed watching the documentary, as the bandages came off the eyes of the children, teenagers, adults, the middle age, and seniors, and they were able to see again – some for the first time in several years.  This was crazy.  In the U.S. this surgery is commonplace.  We take it for granted.

What was also interesting is how, after their sight had been restored, the patients did not thank the doctor, but walked to the front of the room and stood and bowed in front of an image of North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-il and paid emotional worship to the supreme leader for giving them their sight back. 

Yeah, OK, kiss up to the Kim Jong-il, who, along with his henchmen, are responsible for more than three million North Koreans dying from famine – and other suffering that is beyond calculation and understanding. 

Famine. Imagine.  We have not totally wiped out hunger in this nation – but we have the elimination of hunger on the near horizon.  And let's put things in perspective. Indeed, we might want to think for a bit the the next time we are motoring down 138 and we need to do the drive-through at Wendy's because we are "starving."

Starving?  Really?

I tell you, on the whole – in the broad sense and reality – we have it good in America. 

We need to reflect and think about just how good. 

And if you know of some people who are ungrateful, maybe you can ever so lightly, tactifully, and nicely remind and connect them with this truth.