Stop being so grumpy
Things are better than you think plus this grumpiness is unfair to young Americans
I’ve been talking to young Americans. They are deeply worried about the future. Climate change is probably the top issue I hear about from them, but their own economic situation is right up there. That’s especially true for indebted college grads. About politics, many just say it doesn’t work.
It breaks my heart. These people are talented. They are creative. They want to work hard. They care about the country. They care about their fellow citizens. They care about the planet. And they will do great things. Despite what they say, I cannot listen to them and agree that their future is bleak.
Their anxieties are partly the fault of the adults older than they are. We are too much anger and too little joy. Too much complaining and too little living.
Our challenges are real. But our challenges have always been real. We should meet them head on. Instead, we invent threats where none exist, ignore real ones that we might resolve if only we would, and worse, we watch all of this unfold as spectators when we should be agents of our own progress.
Young Americans deserve better from us. And, the news, really, is not so bleak as people think.
Consider these recent headline stories:
After analyzing the data on 4th quarter growth, the US economy is growing at an annualized rate of 6.9 percent. That’s the fastest growth in more than forty years. And it comes during a time of rising wages. Turns out paying workers more is not so bad for the economy after all!
It is not just wage earners who are feeling the benefit. The farm economy is doing quite well too. That bodes well for the possibility of rapprochement between urban and rural Americans if only we are brave enough to talk with each other instead of at each other.
After such misery, COVID numbers are coming down. Protection for vaccinated Americans seems now to be very strong. Hospitals are once again performing routine elective surgeries. And, according to Oxford University’s Our World Data Project, more than 10 billion doses of the vaccine have been administered worldwide.
I don’t want to be pollyannish. I am optimistic about our future not because it lacks great challenges, but because I see in us a spirit capable of overcoming them.
We owe it to our young people not only to win the political struggle that threatens our democratic way of life, but also to begin to focus on the kind of country we will build when we’ve won. FDR did not wait until VE and VJ days to plan the postwar peace. Lincoln did not wait for Appomattox to contemplate a future with malice towards none. Neither, in fact, lived to see the peace but both helped define the worlds that would result.
That future is not just about politics. As I write this, in Chicago, Jason Van Dyke, the ex-Chicago cop who murdered Laquan McDonald, will be released after serving three years, three months and nine days of the 81-month sentence handed down after his 2018 conviction. This week, so many other men, convicted of similar or even lesser crimes, will be serving their second decade in prisons. I don’t often talk about criminal justice issues because they are complex and so deeply sad. I hope Mr. Van Dyke comes out of prison understanding his own guilt and determined to help right the wrongs he helped to create. That’s what prison is supposed to do.
But it is supposed to do something else too. Our justice system is supposed reflect our shared understanding of what is and is not acceptable in our society. In this case, as in others, it fails. I think the of conversation I had on my radio show a few months back when the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict came down. People were deeply divided about the justice of the ruling, and equally divided about what the ruling said about our society. Moving beyond our prejudices and our fears to get closer to a shared point of view around criminal justice has to be part of our healing.
These are just the beginnings of thoughts. I hope to explore them further as the year unfolds.
Meanwhile, I am certain of this- we should stop being grumpy, put our shoulder to the political fight we are in, and let younger folks know the future is far less bleak than they think. We can be determined without being depressed, and we can fight hard without being so unpleasant all the time. We owe that to young Americans.
