It is amazing how much the world has changed in the past 100 years. In 1911 a letter mailed from New York to San Francisco would take a month to arrive via ship or stage coach. In 1909, one mile of Woodward Ave. in Highland Park, Michigan became the first public road paved with cement. In 1910 radio was in its infancy, the telegraph was the quickest means of transmitting words from one place to another. It took 9 days to cross the ocean from Europe to the United States.
In the past 100 years scientific discoveries built upon scientific discovery. We have traveled fast and father than our grandfathers ever dreamed possible. Every aspect of our lives moves faster and faster. Words fly from computer to BlackBerry. Orders placed in Michigan to a company in California are filled and shipped overnight. Hospitals now advertise their short wait time in the emergency room. We no longer have to wait more than a day to have our dreams fulfilled.
In many ways we live in a time of instant gratification and, for the most part, that is a good thing. However, there are some things that take time and this runs against everything that we have experienced. Today is election day and every indication is that the Republican Party will see huge gains in the House of Representatives and in the Senate. The American people have given the Democratic Party two year to effect the change they ran on in 2008 and, in the view of many, they have failed. Now the Republican Party has two years to straighten out the mess seen in our country. They will have two years to turn the economy around, reduce unemployment and reduce the deficit. They will have two years to settle the war in Afghanistan and deal with immigration. If they don't do this, they too will be voted out to be replaced by a new crop of legislators.
The problem is that none of these problems can be solved in two years or ten years. We are so used to instant results and instant gratification that we don't have the patience or the time that it takes to fix these systemic problems. That sets us up for a two year cycle of hopes followed by failure. I do not know how we restore the patience we need to address all these problems. But somehow we must.
We need a vision of the future that goes beyond weeks or years and make plans that will take decades to complete. Then we will need the patience to stick to those plans even if we do not see any progress in the short run. We need to reform how we look at our elected representatives so that they do not begin their re-election bids on the day after they take their oaths of office. We need, as a country, to give our elected representatives the courage to do the right thing and not just the politically expedient thing. We need representative whose first thought is NOT how will this vote effect my reelection but rather how will it effect the citizens.
While some gratification may be instant, all good things come to those who wait. We really have no choice.
