Not Investing in the Future?
Here’s Why You Need to Rethink That Decision
Given the chaotic state of national affairs, some folks today, mostly those who are younger and currently struggling, feel that investing in the future, both the country’s and their own, is a waste of both time and energy. But, as history has taught us, nothing could be further from the truth.
(with a “tip-o’-the-hat” to Steve Miller and his “Living in the U.S.A.”)
What “Living in the U.S.A.” Looked Like 50 Years Ago
More than fifty years ago, the Steve Miller Band released their second album, “Sailor”.
It was October of 1968. It was a time of great turmoil in American life.
Several months before, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the younger brother to America’s assassinated president, JFK, had lost his life to an assassin’s bullet. A few months earlier, in April of that year, the Reverend Martin Luther King had met a similar fate.
The war in Vietnam had split the nation along ideological lines.
We have seen the same mass division of ideology in our own time. The current fight between Donald Trump and his supporters on one hand, and the Democrat Party and the Resistance on the other.
By the end of that year, Richard Nixon had been elected President, both Eugene McCarthy and the Democrat Establishment had been vanquished.
Investing in the future was the last thing on anyone’s minds. The nation was on edge, seemingly poised to plunge over the cliff and take the world with it.
And, here’s what that period looked like, according to Wikipedia’s the “1960s”.
Thus, it was by no means a fluke that a single from the Sailor album, Miller’s own “Living In The U.S.A.,” became an instant hit. It began serving as a kind of underground anthem during the later part of that year. A year that was one of the most turbulent periods during the Vietnam War.
Did the Song Reflect a New America, or Merely the Views of a Certain Segment of the Population at the Time?
“Living In The U.S.A.” provided a perfect backdrop to the drama that was unfolding at the time. It applauded exuberance and personal freedom, a hallmark of American life. But at the same time it provided critical commentary on a diverse set of topics. Topics ranging from the then current crop of politicians (and how they were, collectively, driving the nation into a ditch) to cheeseburgers.
It did this with abandon and with a stylistically jaded and sarcastic tone. It spoke to all the issues of the day, including prejudice and poverty. And it called out an insensitive government that was sending its youth off to die a hellish death in the jungles of Southeast Asia.
Vast segments of the U.S. population thought the sky was literally falling. Turmoil was everywhere anyone looked and many believed it would, fundamentally, change the landscape of the country forever. Beyond that, all they could see was the abyss …..
So, investing in the future was the last thing on the mind of many. Who knew if there even was going to be a future to which they could look forward?
Was the U.S.A. Fundamentally Changed by the ’60’s and 70’s… or Was It Merely a Phase Through Which We Passed?
Yet, less than two decades later, life in the U.S. had executed a quick, swift about-face.
Ronald Reagan was in office and “greed was good” (we were told by Gordon Gekko). The issues of discrimination and poverty receded into the background.
We had won the “cold war” without firing a shot and American life had (as Donald Trump is now so fond of saying) “never been better!” We had survived the chaos! What a miracle! How unusual! We had narrowly avoided apocalypse. We might not be so lucky next time!
However, the 1980’s, and then later, the second half of the 1990’s, had not changed anything, at least not anything fundamental. But what did change, in each case, was our perception, our external view of the world during each of those epochs.
Time had simply moved on, changing the landscape and the conversation in the process. The voices of doom had receded, everyone seemed to be making money and enjoying prosperous lives. Investing in the future had become an important goal again.
It was widely accepted that freedom, democracy and American capitalism had won the day, had vanquished every competing system and all enemies for all time.
What the Past Always Teaches Us About the Future
But, as we now know, all of that, of course, was simply “hogwash“. And, as we can tell from our current vantage point, nothing had fundamentally changed.
Sure, we invented the desktop computer. Dick Tracy-like walkie-talkies (the iPhone) have become a reality. Music is now purchased in the form of singles instead of albums, and we’ve now had our very first African-American (literally) president.
However, rather than vanquishing enemies or competing economic systems, we are now confronted by a still more ancient foe, one who with their own Chinese-style of capitalistic socialism is far more formidable than before, and which is giving us a real run for our money.
At the same time, our youth seems committed to trying out socialism. Because capitalism, as practiced by the most avaricious among us, seems to have left most of them high and dry.
Turmoil and trouble have not been vanquished and “good” has most decidedly not overcome “evil” once and for all.
So What’s the Point?
Alright, you ask, so what’s the point?? The point is simply this: no matter how awful, how dark and dreary, how apocalyptic a moment in time may look to us, nothing ever really changes in life.
There are seasons that life ebbs and flows through. What looks promising and encouraging at one moment can seem dark and menacing at another and vice versa.
Don’t be fooled, and don’t despair. Live as full a life as possible, but be cautious. Don’t give into the drama; don’t believe things will never be the same again, because they most assuredly will.
Invest in your country and in its and your future, because, like it or not, someday that future is going to arrive. Don’t fail to take care of tomorrow simply because you’re not feeling energized today.
And remember: as the orphan, Annie, likes to remind us “the sun will come out tomorrow”.
Cheeseburger, anyone?
