The future is a scary place for many of us. We primarily see things that are out to get us and hurt us. We cling to the past as the good old days. The thing about that is that the past was simply not the good old days as we remember them. We seem to have an abject fear of letting our children out of our view for fear that they will be abducted. But the fact it that these are safer times in that regard than they were twenty, thirty, or even forty years ago.
We as a country seem to have an abject fear of any radical rag-tag group that does something utterly stupid on the other side of the world. We spend trillions of bucks to take them out but all that really does is to spurn yet another group’s ire for our intrusion into their lives.We can’t seem to realize the possibility that if we just leave them alone they will leave us alone.
Sometimes to face the future you must let go of the past. You have to throw all the old baggage out the window and dream of other possibilities. Dreading the future is certainly one option we have but I believe a better one is to dream of a future where we actually love each other as God commanded us to do in almost all religions.
Old wounds can drag you down and keep you where you don’t really want to be. A good example of this are the traumatized war veterans of sadly each generation. For my generation it was Vietnam. For more recent ones it is Iraq and Afghanistan. Trauma does terrible things to all of us but for some it is totally devastating. Those unfortunate souls are lost in the past with no dreams or expectations for the future.
Health tragedies hold others in their grips. It could be an accident that claimed a limb or maybe the deaths that resulted from the accident. It could be a major health event that caused six-figure medical bills that seem totally inescapable.
The future can be a scary place but sometimes the past is even scarier. The pessimists of the world many times live in a very dreary world, much of their own making. Optimism allows us to see a better place in front of us. Don’t ever allow life to drain that away from you. Always cling to that optimist thread no matter how thin it might be…
RJ's Corner 
RJ – Great post that leaves a lot of us with much to think about. I keep back to the adage that “doing the same thing but expecting different results is a definition of insanity”. We have tried relying solely on military reactions in the past and they don’t work – or don’t work for long! I do believe we need to try and contain some of the rag tag threats from the Middle East but….we also need to think through how we could make a difference in people’s lives so that they have a greater choice and we’re seen as more than just “boots on the ground”! We also have to remember that too often the news coverage is only about the negative issues and overlooks many of the positive changes occurring throughout the world. I think things are better than they were 50 years ago – perhaps not perfect but definitely better. Mike
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Hi Mike, thanks again for the comment. I guess we need to append the common phrase you used from “boot on the ground” to “boots on the ground and drones in the sky”. 😉
It is interesting to see that most young people have now grown up in the post 9/11 era. I wonder if they share all the fear that their elders do? It seems we are becoming afraid of our own shadows now.
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