I
feel sorry for the next generation. Admittedly, I am not very old myself, but as
I look back over my life I realize that the times during which I really
appreciated what I had were the times when I didn=t
really have very much. It seems that the more we have, the more we want, and the
more we take for granted what we have. Many of us spend our entire life
searching for something that we had right in front of us all along.
My first teaching assignment was at an inner city school. Many of the
children came from the low rent area of town and were very poor. The school used
a large room in the basement as a gymnasium. The walls were panelled and there
were pillars throughout the room. When you played floor hockey, you had to stick
handle around the pillars. But I never once heard a complaint from those kids.
They loved their gym and couldn=t
wait to get down to the room to play whatever it was you asked. They were
sincerely appreciative of anything you did for them and took excellent care of
their equipment, books and school materials.
My next assignment was at a large, well-equipped school in the suburbs. The
gym was huge and we had everything imaginable in terms of supplies and
equipment. In spite of everything they had, these children did nothing but
complain. Nothing was good enough for them. The more they had, the more they
wanted. Furthermore, they had very little respect for school property and couldn=t
care less if things were damaged or lost.
I often wondered how the children from my first school would feel if they had
an opportunity to attend the >rich=
school. In retrospect, I am almost thankful that those disadvantaged children
were denied the riches of the suburbs. They may have had to do without the
luxuries that their suburbanite peers enjoyed, but at least they developed the
ability to get the most out of what little they did have. And they developed a
strong character which would help them face the challenges of the future. I
feared for the children from the suburbs who had only learned how to criticize
and complain about the shortcomings of the abundances they did have.
It is hard to imagine how the next generation is going to cope with the
choices they will have placed in front of them. If the technological advances of
the past several years are any indication, the future will be amazingly complex.
It will be geared to personal fulfilment through the use of technology. People
will have everything they could dream of right at their fingertips, and yet I
suspect those very people will not be happy. They will live their entire life
looking for >something
better=.
It reminds me of a story about a farmer who had lived on the same farm all
his life. It was a good farm with fertile soil, but with the passing of the
years, the farmer began to think that maybe there was something better for him.
So, he set out to find an even better plot of land to farm.
Every day he found a new reason for criticizing some feature of his old farm.
Finally, he decided to sell. He listed the farm with a real estate broker who
promptly prepared an advertisement emphasizing all the many advantages of the
acreage: ideal location, modern equipment, healthy stock, acres of fertile
ground, high yields on crops, well-kept barns and pens, nice two-story house on
a hill above the pasture.
When the real estate agent called to read the ad to the farmer for his
approval prior to placing it in the local paper, the farmer heard him out. When
the real estate agent had finished, the farmer cried out, AHold
everything. I=ve
changed my mind. I=m
not going to sell. Why, I=ve
been looking for a place just like that all my life!@
My wife and I have lived in our home for the past 27 years. We have raised
our three sons in this house and have enjoyed many happy memories. Others we
speak to find it hard to imagine how anyone could remain in the same house for
so long. Don=t
we wish we had a larger house? Or a house on a lake? Or a house in the city? Or
a house with a pool? Or a house with more land? Over they years I suppose we
have thought about those things, but now, as we walk around our modest property,
immersed in the wonderful memories of the past, we realize, as did the farmer,
that this is the place we=ve
been looking for all our lives. We wouldn=t
trade it for anything.
Next time you feel the urge to look for >something
better=,
start identifying the good traits of what you do have. You are likely to find
that they far outweigh the bad. Focus on what you have and what you don=t
have will likely seem insignificant.
Have a good week!
