I remember first hearing the story of The Tortoise and the Hare when I was a young child.  I think I heard it in English so it would’ve been when I was around ten.  I was in a bilingual classroom, and there were kids from first to fifth grade, so I had to tolerate many activities aimed for younger kids.

I remember the tale pretty distinctly.  I imagine that different people may interpret it differently, and that’s their right; there are many discussions about the interpretation of this story.  For me, it served as a cautionary tale.  It speaks to what happens when you have such great potential, but you’re lackadaisical about your ability and squander it.

It seems silly, almost tragic, to think that we may look upon a children’s story to speak of where we’ve come in life.  Have we become complacent in our potential?  Have we become The Hare in the story and elect to take a nap instead of achieving?  Instead of improving?

You’ll often hear people make proud declarations about themselves.  I have made such claims about my good memory, though I’ll nearly always follow that up with “that’s what people tell me.”  When I hear such claims my mind runs to one of two thoughts.

First, it serves as a rationalization to stop achieving… to stop improving… to stop striving.  I remember watching a scene from the movie “Teachers”, Alex Jurel, a teacher played by Nick Nolte, challenged Ditto with, “Your class is boring.  Your students don’t learn a thing.  If it wasn’t for tenure, you’d be selling vacuum cleaners.”  It’s a strange irony that in this example Ditto falls asleep during the class, much like the Hare took a nap, and even tragically passed away while sleeping at his desk.

Second, the scenario is that of braggards that voice this not so much to convince you about this fact, but to convince themselves of this fact.  In the above scene, Ditto proudly, defiantly responds with, “I don’t have to take that from you.  I have received three consecutive teaching awards for the most orderly class.”  He then goes to repeat it.  Jurel then responds with (though not in this clip), “Your shit don’t stink.”  I wondered, was Ditto saying it to convince others or to reinforce this belief for himself?

Both in the The Tortoise and the Hare and the movie Teachers the examples are pretty obvious.  Maybe it’s a matter of their being rather contrived or maybe it’s because we are projecting.  Are we as good at seeing this behavior when it’s something with which we identify?  More than once, I’ve gotten into a discussion where someone proudly announces that:

“This [the United States] is the greatest country in the world.”

I’m proud to say that I’m a citizen of the United States, yet when I hear this it sets my teeth on edge.  I go back to the above examples and quietly wonder to myself.  Are you trying to convince yourself? OR Are you making a rationalization so you can justify your complacency?

That was what crossed my mind when someone posted this video from The Newsroom for discussion.  The next time you utter that sentence, think about why you said it.

We are capable to love someone like a child or parent.  We love them; we are proud of them; they are imperfect.  It doesn’t diminish our love for them.  In that same spirit…  I love my country.  I’m proud of my country.  We are imperfect and will never be perfect, but this is not an excuse to be complacent.  We should still continue to try to improve every day.

When I started my professional career nearly 30 years ago, my work computer ran several hundred times slower and had 1/10,000th the storage capacity of my current home computer.  I’m glad that this industry didn’t stop trying to improve.  Is it ever going to be perfect?  Have infinite processing power?  Have infinite storage?  Should we stop because we can’t perfect it?  No.

Do you look forward to new features in cars?  phones?  televisions?  Why do we insist on advances in so many elements of our lives, but resist change in our country?  Isn’t the very definition of ‘slow to change’ imply ‘averse to progress’?

Don’t get me wrong, there are some things that are likely good enough.  In fact, there was a fascinating Wired article about precisely this the “Good Enough” Revolution.  For instance, I’m not sure if we need to define another image format…  Or music format… etc.  The wisdom lies in knowing when.

That said, there are many things that fall short.  To quote Billy Joel, “because the good old days weren’t always good and tomorrow ain’t as bad as it seems.”

At different points in history, conservative ideals opposed radical notions of:

• Not owning other human beings as property
• Citizens, not merely land-owners, being able to vote
• Mixed race marriages
• Blacks and whites attending the same schools
• Chinese, who helped build our transcontinental railroads, becoming citizens
• Two people of the same gender getting married
• Every citizen independent of race or gender being able to vote
• The list goes on…

Do we still think that these are radical policies?  Here’s an idea, maybe the right thing to do, is simply that.  The right thing to do, and it has little to do with how comfortable you feel about your two male neighbors adopting a baby.

The Earth has always been spherical, even if humans didn’t warm up to the idea until about the 15th century.  North has always been north, even if you just found your compass this morning.  At least entertain the notion that maybe the problem isn’t others pushing these radical ideas upon you; maybe the problem is your apprehension in accepting ideas of fairness and equality.

So reflecting back on history, can we at least entertain the radical notions that:

• Transgendered citizens should have the same rights (and be able to serve in the military and get health care) as every other citizen, much like we debated mixed race marriages in 1967.
• We acknowledge that there is systemic racism and seek to eradicate it, much like we acknowledged that there’s no so such thing as ‘separate, but equal’ in 1954 .
• Instead of tightening our borders we accept these immigrants as productive members of our society who were instrumental in building something great and dismissed notions that they should be excluded like we finally did in 1943.

Let’s contemplate on this together.  Do you really want to be the person who supported segregation?  …who opposed miscegenation?  …who opposed the suffrage of women?  Fast forward a few decades, what are the equivalent to those issues today?  …all for the notion of conservative values and opposing change?

Are we the greatest country in the world?  Do we think that our continuing to say it is going to magically transform it into truth?  Do we think that this permits us to ignore the problems that we have because we’re wonderful and hence the problems are just ‘not that serious’?

Let me frame it differently…  What are we great at?  No, seriously…  Besides the military, what can we legitimately say that we do better than all other countries?

Allow me to enlighten you, we can’t logistically make America ‘great’ again because it was never great.  This country has sucked for a lot of people for a long time; we’re just trying to correct it.

For those of you who are angry about life changing and things being ‘taken from you’, I want you to imagine this.  Picture a round table with eight children sitting down for lunch.  They bring a pizza and put it at the center of the table; it’s cut into eight equal slices.  You’re the brat who complains that you can no longer have more than one slice of pizza, the way you were able to just last week.

Oh, I’m sorry…  Are your crystal slippers too snug?  That extra slice of pizza was never legitimately yours, even if you have historically gotten it.

Let’s be the Hare who doesn’t lie down to take a nap.  Let’s be the Hare who listens with empathy and doesn’t minimize it as “it’s not that bad.“

As I’m going through this, I’m reflecting on the final scene from the movie The Firm.  After all the hoopla (watch it if you haven’t; it’s a good film), Abby turns to her husband Mitch and says:

I’ve loved you all my life. Even before we met. Part of it wasn’t even you. It was just a promise of you.

When I first heard that phrase, I was a bit puzzled.  One day it finally struck me.  In some ways I feel the same way about our country.

In many ways our country is ugly…  We have butchered Indigenous people.  We have enslaved Blacks.  We have denied Chinese citizenship after building our railroads.  We have imprisoned Japanese for being Japanese.  We continue to resist change.  I could go on…

It’s not necessarily the current America that I love.  It’s the idea of the Melting Pot; the one country that inspires diversity.  It’s the vision of the Land of Opportunity; the premise of equality and fairness.  That is the element that sets our country apart from others.  America, I fell in love with the promise of you.

I’m an optimist, and I have hope.  You may never be perfect, but you can still fulfill that promise.  We can do it together; we can be the greatest country in the world.