It's a different world out there

This week has brought with it the birth of my fourth grandchild. While joyful I am also somewhat sad about it as well. As those of you who have read this blog you know I miss my parents and I wish they could be here to see their great-grandchildren. I also worry about the world we are leaving for them.

It's a different world today then it was when I was a kid. While many argue it is better, I am not so sure. In one of my other blogs as well as some of the free lance articles I write, I talk a lot about these differences. The main one is there seems to be a shift in focus with people today than there used to be. We no longer seem to have that same sense of morality or religious belief which we had then, the sense of family has crumbled, we have become a "What's in it for me" society.

On one of the local talk shows I listen to the host made a statement about how Americans will always come through when something bad happens. For example if we were to enter into another depression we would all work together to find our way out of it. I don't agree. First, I am not so sure we aren't already in a depression and second we have become a society where we expect  everything to be given to us. Everybody gets a prize, whether they win or lose, whether they come in first or they come in last. If something like school work is too hard, we tell our children that is is okay just do your best or in some case we stop assigning homework, and we wonder why we are behind in education from other countries

Look at the Occupy movement and you will see a lot of people who feel that they should be able to get a big paying job right our of college even though they have useless degrees in fields where there just isn't any work. They feel they shouldn't have to start at the bottom and work their way up. We have convinced our children they need a college education, they need a big house and lots of expensive toys when they don't.

When I was a kid we were taught to respect others, to treat everyone as we would want to be treated, everyone was the same, this is what God taught us. We didn't need to make laws which forced us to treat one group special and by doing so make them more equal than others. Yes discrimination is wrong, and no i wasn't raised in the south so I guess I didn't experience segregation, but we did need civil rights laws to make people equal, but not more equal. We now give some groups, not just blacks, but women, gays, trans-genders and anyone else who consider themselves to be different an advantage becasue of the group they are in. Call me racist or any other name, but I am pretty sure this is not what Martin Luther King jr. had in mind in his "I had a dream" speech.

But what scares me most is the fact that we have turned the our morals upside down. We have removed religion from everything, it now takes a back seat to everything else. We think nothing of breaking a law becasue we want something, and if that is the only way to get it, then so be it. The Ten Commandments no longer mean what they did before, neither does the Golden Rule, this is the world I am leaving my grandchildren and it makes me very sad.

I have also realized I have no one to blame but myself. For too long i sat on the sidelines waiting for someone else to take charge, and they did. Unfortunately the people who took charge don't quite have the same ideals as I do and now maybe it is just too late.