30 Something Expectations
It’s a fact that the United States is the most consumptive nation in the world. For several generations, we were also the most productive nation in the world. Notice the references to “is” and “was”. This is not a byproduct of macroeconomics, quite the contrary, macroeconomics is the result of our gluttonous appetite and expectational attitudes. Here’s a memory not found in anyone under the age of thirty. Thirty-something years ago, when Detroit auto workers were considering a labor strike, there was an interview with a thirty-something assembly line worker on the national evening news. It struck me like a 2″x4″ in the head, never to be forgotten. The abbreviated version went like this: Q: “Why are you threatening to strike”? A: “I have 5 kids, how am I suppose to provide for a family of seven, with future college expenses on $24.75 an hour”? That was the late 1970′s. Back then I’d been a college graduate for 6 years, was new to management and my spouse and I were saving for graduate school. Children hadn’t made it into our economic feasibility calculations yet. Having been raised by parents who preached hard work, patience and sacrifice, I was astonished by that answer. That was the first moment when the concept of separate realities took seed in me. Expectations had replaced all of the fundamental principles that I’d been taught and I couldn’t easily digest such an unrealistic attitude.
If you’ve never undertaken the arduous yet essential task of reading the Holy Bible from cover to cover, you were probably so busy living this lesson that you failed to learn from it. If everyone (or any majority) expects to get more than they are willing to give, the resources desired will be depleted long before the appetite or demand is satisfied. In other words, gloom and doom. The bible tells this story of expectations, over and over, generation upon generations of what not to do, how not to act. Ecclesiastes 5:12, “The sleep of a laborer is sweet, whether he eats little or much, but the abundance of a rich man permits him no sleep“. Our stomachs hold only one day’s feast. We have a single body to adorn each day. There is but one sky and earth to be shared by all. There is only one thing which we need expect, which is for the one true God to keep his word, as He has always done. It’s that word we need to bank on, not the expectational pleasures of a gluttonous population, who demand their politicians and employers routinely put the “needs” of others before themselves. Hint: Only God does that!
JC Calkins with COMMON SENSE 4 UNCOMMON PEOPLE
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