Tuesday, 14 April 2009
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Trophies and Hugs (Will Not Cure the Recession)
It was well over 100 degrees, and the heat radiated back up off the tar. The row of men carrying shovels and pushing wheelbarrows wear sun-scorched skin, beads of sweat dripping down sinewy arms.
A man wobbles, and then falls. He doesn’t get up. Another one jumps up out of the ditch, and grabs his tool. There are twenty more men waiting in the shade, hoping another one will fall.
This is how Illinois Rt. 104 was built through the west-central part of the state. Two crews of men, desperate for work during the depression. For hours of work per crew. No breaks, or water. If a man passed out from the heat, they drug him to the side of the road, and left him. There was always another desperate soul quick to take his place.
This is not a scene from a movie. This is what “work” looked like for my Great Uncle Gerald during the depression. This is one way he the rent got paid and food found it’s way to the table.
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I know that there have been thousands of magazine articles and several books dedicated to our current financial status, and this doesn’t even take into account the hours upon hours of coverage of people yelling at each other over it on CNN and Fox News. They all have complicated theories of what went wrong and how to fix it.
Let me simplify things a bit. This is where this recession came from:
Too many people, buying too much stuff they couldn’t afford, for far too long.
Seriously, that’s it.
Now, I’m not saying you lived this way, and I certainly didn’t either. But the course of nations are not decided by what you and I choose, but by the habits, beliefs, and actions of the majority….of millions.
And millions borrowed lots of money to buy stuff they couldn’t afford, and thought that just because they had been doing it for 10 years, they could do it forever. And that’s why the bottom fell out.
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I know a guy who I call “the 1979 Yugo.” He earned this nickname because you just can’t make him work.
He’s in graduate school, studying to be a pastor. It’s not that he can’t work, that he’ injured or has some other limitation, but simply that he refuses to. Says working fast food would be “below him,” even though he has a wife and a daughter to support.
This is pretty foreign for me, because I was brought up to work. I broke up concrete by hand one summer, picked up hay bales, built fence, burned brush, sold shoes, made a poor attempt at selling knives door to door, cleaned a church, and did various other jobs to get through college. Fortunately, none of that was “beneath me,” or I would have never gone to college, and would not be in radio today.
And none of it was that hard, comparatively. It was my grandparents, my great aunts and uncles, who worked 16 hours days to save their farms from foreclosure. If any of them got a “break” from the labor, it was a 6 week stint known as “basic training” before getting shipped out with the other draftees to fight Germans.
And when they got home, cows still needed to be fed, fences mended, fields seeded. So they got back to work.
And not once do I ever recall someone refusing to drive a post or carry a 90lb. bale or look for a lost cow in a rainstorm because it was it was “beneath them.” Life requires things like food, clothing, soap, medicine, and heat in the winter. And work was how you got those things.
I hope “1979 Yugo” who’s too good to don an apron and fry burgers alongside the people whose souls he will one day try and win, doesn’t spend too much time reading the Bible. Too much stuff in there to make him uncomfortable, like how a man who doesn’t first provide for his family is worse than an unbeliever, or how God uses the tasks we are given to grow us (see: the parable of the talents).
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The root problem of the recession is not inheratantly political.
The real problem is that we have an entire generation of people who believe that they deserve a hug and a trophy just for existing. They expect the world to revolve around them, and they don’t then there is a grown-up temper tantrum coming (to see one of these, go to a local car dealership and watch as a man whines to his wife about why he “needs” a new truck).
In her brilliant book “Generation Me,” sociologist Judith Twinge warns of the dangers of self-esteem for the sake of self-esteem. In most generations and societies, self-esteem is something that develops in children naturally, as they learn, grow, and move forward in the world. They feel good about themselves when they learn an instrument, take on a paper route, or participate in a sport.
Back in the 1980’s we began to try to give kids self-esteem without them doing anything to earn it. Those kids grew up. And once they were out in the workforce, nobody cared that making this particular spreadsheet didn’t make them feel empowered. So they (we) pouted. A lot.
It is the same “I am so special” mentality that drove the banks and auto industries into places of desperation. If you look at the decisions made, like GM telling the federal government that they “didn’t have enough money to stay open for 30 more days,” it’s pretty clear to see how this same outlook on the world is still in place. “Who cares that the company I’m in charge of is in the red, and this has been coming at us for ten years. I am a super-duper special person, and I DESERVE to be bailed out of my mess with other people’s money. I want my trophy and my hug, and I want them NOW before I have to feel bad about something.”
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Please understand, that I know many people are out of work, and feel terrible each morning because they can’t go out and support their families. This last year has been very, very hard for so many families, and so many good men and women who were working hard and got laid off would like a job but can’t find one. And you and I that are doing ok through all of this need to share with them, love on them, insist on generosity even if they first refuse.
But this recession is a great time to examine our weakness as a culture, as a people. We have the opportunity to see the world and realize that the sun doesn’t rise and set around our individual happiness.
Right now, we have a chance to break away from the model of “amuse me, make me feel special, and do it right now” worldview. This way of living has made us fat from eating takeout, lonely from staying in and watching cable, and, in general, very narcissistic (see: the stuff we twitter. Please note…no one needs to be alerted that you just ordered a milkshake).
Two months ago, I started dancing. Ballet, to be specific, and my class is the best hour of my week. I signed up for lessons after re-watching the Brad Pitt film Troy, and pondering how the ancient Greeks desired to be masters of all things: public speaking, physical fitness, philosophy, math, dance, cooking, warfare, love. These were a people who worked at being great, invested in their children and communities.
And that’s why I dance. Because it’s not something I’m naturally good at, and I needed to be faced with the option that I might fail, and be forced to choke down my ego and humbly try again.
You see, too much leisure, too much mindless amusement, makes the soul sick. If I am not out there working, trying new things, taking risks, then I have no reason to depend on God. I become stale, like water in a pond with no drainage, scum growing on top. I need risk. I need pain, to step out in faith, to truly be alive and growing. I need resistance, because struggle is the only way to become stronger.
So, I believe the recession is a message to you and me: WAKE UP! Quit loafing through life hoping everything will be entertaining. Accept that some things are not fun, hurt for awhile, and are completely necessary. Work hard, even if you hate your job at the moment. Put your heart into it, and use your time outside of work to start looking for something else. Take a risk, sign up for a class, start dancing. Volunteer. Give money and stuff away.
Do whatever it is you will do once you realize that life is short, and most definitely not all about you.
We may be in a recession, but that’s only a bad thing if you and I don’t walk out of it better.
If you need to, work fast food for awhile. But also, dance.
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