His name is Greed

Sometimes I feel just like a gerbil, running around and around on this rickety wheel. I hate the way it wobbles and sways. I hate the shrill, high-pitched squeak, squeak, squeak of the gears that have been worn ragged by misuse. I want to stop sometimes, yet I am compelled to keep going, driven by a force that I am not sure I truly understand.

Nothing is right anymore. Nothing seems to fit. We are living in a world gone mad, and I find it disturbing how many of us are willing to just sit back and allow it go on this way. The economy is in the toilet. People are broke, losing their jobs, their homes, their hope. And what do we really have left without hope?

America doesn't need a stimulus package. America doesn't need a bunch of monopoly money being mass-produced and distributed as though it might really be worth something. No, what America needs is an exorcist, someone willing to face the ugly demon that is festering, and banish it once and for all.

And what demon might that be? Why, I think that's pretty easy. We all know him. His name is Greed.

We have gotten lazy, so incredibly lazy, and we are raising a generation of young people who have an outrageous sense of entitlement. Young people today think that everything is going to be handed to them on silver platters, and they are never going to have to really work for anything their selfish desire. No one wants to work for anything anymore. Why work, when it's so much easier to pass the buck and let someone else pick up the slack?

Movie stars and professional athletes and crooked politicians are making more money than most of us will ever see in our lives, while the rest of us are barely hanging on. We work ourselves to death so we can raise families and try to catch a glimpse of that "American Dream" we've all heard so much about. Sadly, it's getting harder and harder to recognize it.

We are hitting a point in our American economy that we are faced with the real possibility of another Depression. It's sad, and it's going to hurt a lot of people, but maybe it's the only way to bring balance to our society again. We have gotten wasteful and excessive and completely out of control, and, unfortunately, the only way for the pendulum to swing when it hits one extreme is back the other direction. We are destined to bounce from one extreme to another until we finally find a way to fix what's wrong.

The greatest tragedy of all is that we have lost touch with each other. We have stopped recognizing the fact that we are all connected, that we are all here on this earth for the same reason--to do the best we can with what we have, to help one another, and to learn a little something in the process. This country once claimed that it could be a place where people of all different backgrounds could come together and live in harmony, that people of all races and religions and beliefs could blend together, like a steaming pot of jambalaya, each of our individual flavors made more significant in our combination. Unfortunately, we just can't seem to come together. We live in a nation that is sharply divided, and we are all selfish enough to refuse to accept any of the blame for it ourselves, when the simple truth is that we are all guilty.

So, what can we do? How do we go about fixing such a deeply-rooted problem? Can it be as simple as learning to love each other for who we really are, instead of who we want each other to be? Will we ever be able to look each other in the eyes, and admit that, in spite of everything, in spite of all our difference, we are all wonderfully, beautifully human?