Am I crazy?

I am cautiously writing this, because I'm fearful of coming off a little crazy. Perhaps I'm a little too invested in worrying about my appearance, but my hope is that I can convey some feelings that are clear to me, but may be difficult to articulate.

The basic premise of my thoughts is that we have undergone some major psychological changes culturally and sociologically.

I was reading the national news this morning about the folks who are in panic over unemployment benefits running out in January if Congress doesn't act. My first thought -- which seemed odd at the time -- stirred a slight bit of humor in me. I thought of our nation's founding people. The pilgrims. The colonists. Even the early immigrants who came here with so little. I think they would read that AP story and chuckle -- or chagrin -- at how soft, dependent, and -- from their perspective -- pathetic we have become. Compared to them, we are helpless wussies.

We have gone from "I'm hungry... I better go shoot/plant/harvest something to eat." to "I'm hungry, who's going to feed me?" Of course, I'm not referring to just physical hunger. All our needs, and even some of our wants are provided, or subsidized, by others if we decide to go that route. We are rarely, if ever, encouraged to assess our own resources and then make a plan and muster the ambition to elevate our situation.

And it's not just the government. We have a media culture that dismisses the role of personal choice and responsibility in areas of honesty, sexuality, marital fidelity, and sobriety. We've all probably watched late night comedians who are cheered and applauded when making jokes about casual drug use and sexual promiscuity.

But I'm not really here to talk about moral decline and dependence on government services.

This is where you might think I'm crazy, but I think we are conditioned, whether by design or by default, to forget that we have the ability to make our own choices. It happens, of course, inside our brain. It takes effort to actually make a choice because it requires an authentic -- as opposed to automated -- thought.

Imagine walking by a table at work and seeing a piece of chocolate cake. Almost automatically you pick it up and you eat it. One might say you made the choice to eat the cake, but you really didn't. In fact, you failed to make a choice. You resorted to default, easy, reactive influences. And then the fat chocolate cake eater blames Betty Crocker for getting diabetes and three sets of love handles.

It's possible to make the choice to eat the cake -- but it requires counting the cost of doing so -- the calories, the sugar high, etc. And of course, choosing to not eat the cake is the hard and probably best choice of all.

So how does this apply to our society and culture? I think we are too often mindlessly eating the chocolate cake. We do it when we apply for credit cards. We do it when we buy a home that's bigger than our salary can handle. We do it when we bail out of our marriage when times get rough. So often we simply don't make a choice and instead mindlessly follow the reactive route.

One of my children is learning to play the electric guitar. He was showing me how he could play jingle bells, yet was struggling to get through it. Every time his finger missed a string or fret, he yelled at his little sister who was chattering away like she always does. In his mind, it was her fault he kept messing up. What my son failed to realize is that he, in a very real way, gave his power up. It may not be easy to take responsibility, but when giving it up, it's important to count the cost.

While taking responsibility, fully embracing the individual power to make choices, it may be excruciating. But we've forgotten that it's not impossible.