Build Tomorrow - Another Day Of Life

When I started this series, it was because of an overwhelming sense of missing what was. A time in my life when things were simpler, when time didn’t seem to move so fast, and technology was something you were amazed by, not something that seemed to rule the world around you. Toys required imagination, and vast worlds and cities were made of blocks and legos, that sprawled for what seemed like endless miles, though it was constrained to the confines of a child’s room, but vast and endless constrained only by the limits of their imagination.

As a child’s imagination grows so did my ideas on this series. I began to think about how different the world has become. How jaded, how cynical, and how much more advanced we have become. Yet with all of the advancement in technology, our advancement in understanding the world in which we live has not kept pace. So what does that really mean? Are we better today, rather than yesterday or was yesterday a better day?

“Time is a companion that goes with us on a journey. It reminds us to cherish
each moment, because it will never come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we have lived.”
~Star Trek: Generations

I realize that at some point my children will in their adult life look back and feel the same nostalgia, the same sense of missing what was, and wondering what will be. The same as I do right now. I do believe strongly that time has jaded us a bit into thinking that more material things will bring us happiness. It is the way our culture has evolved. We live in an age of high paid CEO’s 20 year old millionaires, and more technological advances in the last 20 years that had occurred for the first 80 years of the last century. We communicate via text messaging, and e-mail. We check on our kids via GPS, and rely less on them telling us their whereabouts, and their stories. We have more information at our fingertips today than ever before. We can peer into the lives of others through their blogs, their web pages, and there “My Space”, giving a transparency to the world we have never before seen. We see our children before birth with technology never dreamed of 50 years ago. We polarize our politics, by either being totally involved, or barely involved.

So what is the point? I believe it’s this. Our culture needs to meet our technology. Our understanding needs to catch up to our knowledge. Our patience needs to temper our thirst for instant answers. And given the right time, and right input we shall rise to meet the challenge, an face a world in balance with technology, and humanity.

My children won’t miss what live was like 20 years ago, because they weren’t alive. But they will miss today, 20 years from now. So our job is to leave them with memories, just as happy as the ones I had. Memories of those fun family days, playing with their parents, enjoying all the world has to offer.

This will be the last part of the “Now and Then Series”, and I hope you have enjoyed it. I hope I brought back good memories and hope for the future. I have a new series in the works that I hope you will stop by and check out. Part one will be up in the next week.

With the close of this series I hope I have given some insight. So text your children that you love them, send them an email, do whatever you need to. When you get home tonight, turn off the TV and listen to them, put the blackberry away. While things may not be perfect today, and we may have lost some things, we have gained just as many, as long as we learn to adapt. And our families will thrive, differently, but just as well. And I hope you think about those changes, “Now and Then”

~Another Day

Sorry for the delay in posting. It has been a rough week. My wife ended up becoming very sick with a bad sinus infection and terrible bronchitis. Of course all moms out there will know that when this happens and you’re also pregnant, it is always an ordeal as they generally don’t like to prescribe anything. By Tuesday she had gotten worse, and they kept prescribing different things, that we not harmful for the baby, and would make her feel better. I think she is finally on the mend.

Of course both children have since gotten mild cases of bronchitis, so I have been doing a lot of doctors visits and the like, since I am now the only healthy one, running the house has fallen on me. I should be back on track over the weekend.

The next part of the Now and Then Series will be up early next week! Hope you’ll remember to check it out.

~Another Day

As many of you are aware I have been a bit remiss at naming Spotlight Blogs lately. I have been focusing on some other ventures, and spending some time reading other blogs. But in the spirit of my spotlight blogs, I wanted to summarize those I have named to date:

Tales of a Total Spender- This blog is a lesson in partying hard, and surviving Southeast Asia. This blog always makes me laugh.

Blogging Away Debt- Tricia is a well known blogger read by a large number of folks. Her perspective on Debt has helped me many times feel less isolated as I deal with my own debt issues.

Katie’s Crazy Ride- A newlywed’s perspective on life, that is refreshing, and fun.

Acquire Wisdom and Live with Passion- Sam’s Blog is great for a daily dose of inspiration, and putting things in perspective as to what is really important.

Christy’s Coffee Break- Another A list blogger with great comments, and contests. She has helped me improve my blogging ideas immensely.

There are may others that I read, that I hope to spotlight in the near future. If you have a blog you would like to nominate, please send me a comment, and I will check it out!.

Lastly in the spirit of my special series, here is my tribute to Mom’s.

~Another Day

I have talked about the differences between what is and what was. I have talked about how technology has changed the landscape of the family. I talked about how the idea of entitlement has shaped the economic and cultural landscape of our world today.

When I think of some of the other differences between now and then, one thing comes to mind. Apathy.

What do I mean by Apathy? Well apathy is defined as “a state of indifference — where an individual is unresponsive or “indifferent” to aspects of emotional, social, or physical life.” And one thing that has changed over the last 20 to 30 years is the increase in apathy across the world. Lets take for example the political election process in the United States.

In the 1952 presidential race 63.3% of eligible citizens cast their vote. The US population at the time was 157,552,740. What that breaks down two is that 99,730,884 people voted. On local levels the number was closer to 70%, and 75% of individuals stated they followed world events, and politics.

By 1972, the amount of people voting in the presidential election had dropped to 55.2% of the population of 209,896,021. This means 115,862,603 voted. The number is higher, but if you thin about it, it actually means 12,761,771 or almost 13 million less people voted. And by the 2000 election the number of voters had dropped to 51%, or 19,378,986, or 19 Million less people voted. Projections for 2008 many experts have at less than 50%. Do you realize that if only 48% of eligible voter vote in the next election, 144 Million people will chose what happens to over 300 million?

In a 2006 Survey of 18-25 year olds that average that said they kept up on world events was only 41%. Of that about the same amount had voted. Why? The most common answer was that it “didn’t impact them directly.”

What are the reasons for this apathy among us? Well some of them are caused I believe by technology, and entitlement. How do I mean that? Well I discussed on a previous blog post, how my grandfather compared the last 94 years he had lived. One thing he pointed out was even in the 40’s news and events were not so readily accessible. News was usually at least a day old when you got it. So you digested it and looked for it. Today it is at our fingertips. We can find it 24/7, 365. So what happens? I think we become numb to it. How easy is it to be involved in the world around you and truly understand it, when it bombards you relentlessly?

I think another reason is that today people are more involved with themselves as opposed to the world, and even their community. Gone are many of the civic organizations that once existed. And those that do have seen their membership drop significantly in the past two decades.

Thinks about our schools. Many today are focused on scores and grades, as opposed to well rounded children, in both education of facts and education of community. As much as we gain, we loose.

It’s up to us as people, to change this. And I do see the signs of positive change. People who remind us of the important things in life. And it is those things that will return us to a real world community again.

The next item in this series will be focused on the positive impacts of the last 20 years, because there are so many. So understand that this series is intended to balance both the positive and the negative, and provide us with insight into the world we live in, and how we can change it for the better.

The world is run by the people that show up. I hope I am one of them.
~Another Day