Underappreciated

I was recently listening to a leadership talk on CD by Chris Brady, and one of his passing quotes was "What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly." He was quoting Thomas Paine, an 18th century English-American political activist. Although Chris' quoting of Paine was merely an expounding of a sub-point of his overall theme in the talk, I immediately had to jot it down for its profundity.

Looking it up and reading a little further on Thomas Paine, I found that the whole quote originally went like this:

"What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value."

I can really appreciate this quote because, first of all, it applies to so much in life - arguably to everything in life, if you think about it. For example, the 16 year old whose parents buy him/her their first car right after they've obtained their driver's license, can't appreciate that car (whether a Mustang or a "rust bucket") as much as they would if they'd worked hard for a summer, saved up the cash and delayed their gratification, and then purchased the car of their choice - in their price range. Another example is, frankly, me in regards to my wife. What I mean is, as I've often told her, after spending virtually all of my dating years seemingly chasing after gals I desired, and bending over backwards to please them and retain their affections, one day in 2008 she walked into my life and I needed to do nothing to win her over. I have always feared that, for all these years since, I might underappreciate her because I hadn't had to strive to "win" or "obtain" her or her love. The fact that you don't necessarily have to struggle and scratch and claw to obtain a spouse's loyalty - when God's goodness can take care of that - is a topic for another time. But the fact that, generally speaking otherwise, mankind values that which he labored for more deeply, is the topic here.

The ultimate example, or application, I want to draw attention to in light of Thomas Paine's quote, is our freedom as Americans.

Thomas Paine's quote highlights (and probably, when he first said it, purposely foretold) how free Americans of each subsequent generation stand to lose more ground than those before them in the battle to stay fully appreciative of the freedoms our country enjoys. Anyone who's spent considerable time over in a third world or war-torn country doing mission work will confirm this when they come home. Anyone who served in the armed forces or simply lived during the Greatest Generation in the World War II era will bemoan this. Simply put, if you didn't earn it, you can't appreciate it enough. To any who want to shrug off responsibility for that truth in their own life, because of facts they can't change (like "But I wasn't even alive until long past those years!"), well -- we can still try!! We can still study those times. We can still study the founding generation, their efforts, their values, etc. We can still make our freedom a subject of concern and common conversation, as if it still matters greatly now, just as it did then when it was still being earned or "obtained."

21st Century Americans are wusses. Plain and simple. And that includes me. Maybe some of us have had difficult family lives and have been toughened by poverty by our country's standards. Maybe others of us have served in the armed forces recently - or still do - and you would be exempt from this because you have seen what it's like to pay a price for your country's freedom, and if so, I and millions in our country thank you sincerely and wish you could be more highly esteemed. But maybe who I'm mostly directly speaking to as I write this is anyone in my generation, or the one immediately before, or certainly the one(s) immediately following. The founding generations....the American settlers who established the territories and cultures of our country....and most recently the generation that makes up our grandparents and great grandparents, didn't know anything of X-Box, iPads and iPhones, DVD players in the backs of headrests in cars, microwaves, or the prevalence of fast food and delivery pizza and subs. They earned their rights as adults in society. They earned their living through hard work (most of the time much harder than the average American has to work nowadays). They purchased things only when they truly deserved them and had earned them, not when they simply wanted them and a bank had told them they could afford X amount of credit for them. And, speaking of the very freedom of our country itself over 200 years ago, they had the utmost freedom and liberty to live as they wanted only when they had truly earned it - only when enough had stood up and argued for it, or had bled and died and sacrificed for it. Not a moment sooner or a dollar less.

I and the vast majority of my countrymen of our latest generations are a laughing stock by comparison. We haven't had to put anything on the line for the freedoms we enjoy still to this day. The majority of us aren't ever called on  explicitly to serve and protect to keep it that way. And even worse, the majority of us still complain and take it all for granted, while through our arrogance and ignorance to how politics really works we just let freedom continue to be taken out from under our noses.

Maybe we can't, or don't have to, sacrifice our lives in blood to put an end to the losses. But how much better would it all be if we banded together, each in our own way, to learn more about the history of our freedom, and what we can do individually and collectively to preserve it? How much better can it be if, instead of our gazes being fixed downward right on our own sacred little plot of ground and time that we're renting (cuz let's face it, we're renting our time from God Almighty, and for most of us our property or homes are rented from the bank - true ownership doesn't exist these days), we look only backward and forward. Backward in thankfulness and appreciation of what others have done to obtain what we have now, and forward in resolve to preserve it all ourselves in whatever way we can so our children and theirs can still enjoy it. History has proven for every other people who were ever free, that if any generation keeps looking downward at themselves, they hasten the day of their freedom loss.

"But Jeff, you don't understand how busy I am..." Yes I do. I am too. Are we too busy to scrimp on a little TV watching, video-game playing, deer-hunting, or hauling kids back and forth from every imaginable peewee league to dedicate time to educating ourselves and our families on the things that will keep freedom alive? Are we too busy with pleasing ourselves and rewarding ourselves for our own hard work that we can't spare a night here or there to volunteer somewhere or show up at local city council meetings or make our (educated) votes known? "Things ain't what they used to be," many of us cry out. That's right, because "used to be" that every citizen, young and old, made a point to gather regularly and discuss the hard things and challenges of the times, to collectively decide again and again on who to keep things headed in the right direction on the local level, so that we all could, as townships, counties, and states, hold the federal government accountable. Why don't we do that anymore? What would happen if we got it back?

Please understand that I don't write to you as George Washington reincarnate, or even as present-day freedom fighters Oliver DeMille or Stephen Palmer (please see http://www.thesocialleader.com/blog/ for true inspiration on all of this). I write to you as someone whose personal economic freedom isn't such yet that i can contribute as much to the solutions as I want to. I'm also someone whose own lazy excuses still get in my way too often. But I want to be that voice of encouragement that says to everyone, "Let's let our efforts rise above our excuses and get busy KEEPING freedom!!"

We may not have "obtained" all that we have and know in our current level of freedom. But we can absolutely strive to live in appreciation and protection of what we "esteem," and make sure that its "dearness" runs deep in each of our homes!

As another Veteran's Day approaches, thank you, God, for those who have served and fallen in the name of American freedom, and thank you for the opportunity in each of our lives, to bring back what is being lost!