Problems Without Solutions

I had the idea of posting this blog earlier tonight. Sometimes I struggle with coming up with topics to blog about, and sometimes the content just flows freely from my mind. I hope that somehow everyone will be able to relate to what I'm talking about and possibly compare it with observations they have made in their own lives. Before I digress any further, let's get started.

I consider myself to be an overly optimistic traditionalist. I'm not trying to get into any political ideologies right now; I know the word traditionalist scares some people. Let me give you my definition of overly optimistic traditionalist. The way I describe this term will help you understand where I'm coming from.

Putting this in my own words, an optimist is a person who sees the best in every situation. It goes a little deeper than the glass is half empty and half full thing, and I would hate to try to wrap this up into a pretty little package and conveniently put a bow on it. By me being optimistic, I hope for the best possible outcome to every problem and look for the best possible interpretation to the things in my life. I want to believe that a person would go to school to better their life, and believe at the same time that this person wants to put forward their best effort to succeed. I look for the best in people as opposed to believing the worst. I don't know if it is some kind of defense mechanism working in my mind to try to somehow protect myself from being disappointed, but it's something that's ingrained in me. It's hard wired into what I do everyday. And being overly optimistic would just mean that even though there is supporting evidence to show that a situation will probably end badly, I am always trying to find that little glimmer of hope that will be pivotal in changing things for the better. My wife seems to think that I am naive when it comes to other things, but I can't always expect her to see my point of view. Not to knock her in any way, but we just don't see things the same.

Now onto my definition of traditionalist. I feel that a traditionalist is someone who respects the ways of the past and believes in building on the things that have been proven to work, while being open to the natural evolution of innovation as long as it's applied with a common sense approach. For example, tradition would show that going to the library to check out books and do research for a project has always worked. But with the rapid changes in technology and innovation, we can find many credible sources of information electronically and in some cases end up with better information than if we went to the library. Of course we can't completely forget tradition and just say screw the library, sooner or later you'll probably find yourself going back to check out a book that you can't find online. Putting overly optimistic and traditionalist together, I am a person that feels like there is hope of finding solutions to problems by looking back at what we've learned in the past - revisiting the ideas that have been proven to work before, because these ideas survived the test of time. I also believe to be an overly optimistic traditionalist, you have to be willing to look at the past and learn from it, as well as work proactively to find solutions. Complaining about a problem doesn't solve it, it just irritates the people around you and wastes the time that could be used to work on a solution. You have to be willing to look at a situation from different perspectives. You can't always approach a problem the same way each time, because that's just insanity. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result. To use an expression I've heard before, you can't see the whole picture when you are standing in front of it.

I'm getting tired of hearing people complain about problems all the time without offering a way to fix them. It's very easy to bitch about something that you don't like, but it's harder to come up with plausible solutions to fix those problems. It's easier to point the finger at someone who doesn't do something right, but wouldn't it be better to show the person how to do it the right way than to complain about the way it's not being done? I can apply this example to my personal life and to society as a whole. The republicans and democrats can complain about what the other is doing wrong all day, but no one is ever willing to step forward and offer real solutions for what's going wrong. Sure people complain about what Obama and Bush are doing all the time, but they find that much easier to do than to find a way to help these boneheads make things work. Wasn't our country built on innovation and invention? If we invented the light bulb, the telephone, and the automobile, what's to say that we can't find ways to reduce debt, stimulate the economy, and find peace. I get so weary of hearing these pundits volley insults back and forth all day, that I've just about stopped listening to anything else than the local news or watch sports highlights on ESPN.

I'm tired of negativity. I'm tired of complaining. I'm tired of being hurt by others who are so pig-headed with their point of view that they are completely oblivious to the world around them. This country is filled with 300 million suns, each sun is a different person who thinks the world revolves around them. I've been guilty of that sometimes; you notice I didn't say 299,999,999 suns. Some of the people real close to me in my personal life are also guilty of this. My love and respect for them has kept me steadfast so far, but like the strongest boulder on a beach, the tide will eventually erode its surface until it turns into a billion fine grains of sand.

As I grow older, I start to see things differently in my life. I begin to appreciate things more than I would have when I was younger. I feel a sense of pride every time I recite the pledge of allegiance or hear the Star Spangled Banner. I tear up whenever I see one of our soldiers made it back home to their family, although they were always willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to preserve our freedoms. I look back at my life and reflect on the mistakes I have made while focusing on the successes to come. What frustrates me more than anything else is that there are a decreasing number of people who share my same values. There are people I know that try harder to make other people look bad than they do to try to make themselves look good. How that could seem rewarding at all baffles my mind. There are other people that are so caught up in their ideology that they couldn't see tyranny if it was painted red and ran them over in the middle of the street.

One of the things I mention a lot in my blogs is the founding fathers. Our founding fathers were visionaries before anyone knew what a visionary was. They were optimist in the purest sense; they saw the potential that this great country had to prosper and staked their lives on that belief. They fought an intimidating, overpowering, and seemingly invincible enemy while overcoming the hardest obstacles. We have to struggle to program the DVR or to bake a pizza that has instructions on the box!

Maybe I'm being a little too philosophical. Some of the greatest philosophers were probably accused of being too philosophical once, but what's so wrong about having thoughts that transcend my own existence. We are a nation full of problems, but they don't have to be problems without solutions.