(Just a rant)

The Great Recession. Who is to blame? The socialist liberals or the imperialistic neo-cons? In politics, I suppose that answer depends on which team you belong. Its easy to blame the other party. But, the more you blame the ills of the country solely on the other party, the more your own party controls you.

Perhaps impatience is our greatest weakness. Impatience brings short term happiness, but leads to long term sadness. Look at our culture. Instant gratification for any want, any desire, any need. Fast food, fast sex, fast forward! Long, loving, stable marriages which result in more well-adjusted children, take extreme patience to succeed. Yet, 40% of children are born out of wedlock. 50% of marriages fail. And so many people want that honeymoon lust, but are too impatient to wait and work for it. Too selfish to make the sacrifices of themselves and make it work with a mate that may not be perfect.  And yet, those in long-lasting marriages are shown to have better, more frequent sex, and have a longer-lasting, and better quality of life. But movies glamorize women and men who dash from the altar for their “true” love.

Impatience leads to obesity. Who has TIME to work out? Who has TIME to make their own fresh meals? Who has TIME to pack their own lunches instead of racing through the drive-thru every day? Well, with the average American watching 4 hours of television per day, I’d say we have a lot of time.

Impatience leads to disconnect and loneliness. We are too impatient to put things on layaway. We want it now. Put it on the credit card! Get it now. Instant gratification! Buy now, pay later! Where is the patience in saving. Where is the humility? The satisfaction. We are too impatient to work for what we want. Why do that if we can steal it? Make it easy by becoming an athelete an actress or country star? 9/11 happened and we wanted instantly to know who did it, why they did it, and why they weren’t in custody yet. We went to war impatiently. We want instant voting results. We want instant information. Who needs to learn critical thinking skills, or learn history, when we can just google it? And what about the peace and tranquility of a walk in the woods? Human for millennia have experienced that individual joy, but now, we worry if we don’t have our cell phone? Fuck Twitter. Fuck Facebook. We are instantly accessible. We have no time for our self. No time. No patience!

We want the cheapest, best products NOW. And we don’t want to pay too much. We’ve consumed ourselves out of jobs because the market sought the cheapest products, the things that make our lives easier, so we have more time, more time, more time. We want the biggest house now. Go deep into debt to get it! So what if the average garage nowadays is the same square footage as the average house in the 1950s.

Road rage – impatient drivers. Drunk driving – too impatient to call a cab. Get where you want NOW. Robberies – too impatient to work for school and get a job. Drop outs – too impatient to get that diploma.

We don’t want patient answers. We don’t want solutions that will take fifty years to implement, but give centuries of prosperity. We want our economy reversed in weeks, not years. We want our wars won in months, our marriages fixed in days, our children perfected by pills. Epiphanies! Miracles!  We fill our kids with medication, rather than putting in the time to understand and change their behavior. We placate them with television and video games. We want our packages delivered yesterday. Our kids in designer clothes before we can afford them. We want a flat stomach with a fast, fancy machine. Its all impatience.

The greatest art. The greatest loves. The greatest friendships. ALL come from patience.

We can blame this Recession on conspiracies and con artists. We can blame our enemies for any of our ills. We can blame everyone for everything. But in the end, we are to blame. You. Me. Your mother and your son. We are impatient. We don’t want to wait. And we all know, that the impatient hare didn’t win, it was the humble turtle that won the race.