The American People

Watching from the Sidelines                                                      

                          Nov. 1, 1995



I was thinking today about American citizens, our goals, priorities, and interests. It saddens me to see my fellow citizens, and I, passing time, rather than living our lives.



Most people don't even realize how far they are from leading a full life. So to them, there isn't a problem. But to me, also someone who has not given as much to life as I can, the frustration leads to this commentary.

  

What is happening to us? Where are we going as a society?

Do we truly understand what is happening to our country,

and ultimately the people of the entire planet? We've

become a country of observers, rather than doers. We

live by slogans, or symbols rather than our own deeds.

If every minute of our lives were one dollar bills,

what we are doing is the equivalent of burning one

every sixty seconds.



"The times, they are a changin.." so goes the song. Yes, much of today is better than yesterday. As a people we

have advanced further in the past fifty years than the

prior five thousand years. But also,too much of today

is weaker, more shallow, with little meaning. Is this

the destination we wanted to arrive at as we rode the technological advances available to us? Are fifty channels, video recorders, computer-chat groups, mindless programs what we really desire? And will they be our legacy?

  

I wonder how many of us get introspective about our lives? How many question what we do? Or measure the importance of our lives?

  

The burning of the minutes of our lives is a crime.

Yet no charges are filed, and each of us is acquitted.

Unfortunately, we are still sentenced. Sentenced to a

life unfulfilled with human achievement.

  

Will this essay end without an answer? NO! There is one.

The answer is within each of us. First, blow out the match! Stop burning the minutes we live! Plan your life so you can reach your goals and follow the road to reach them.

  

Second, spend LESS time watching others at THEIR vocation, and focus on your own. Turn off the TV and get involved

in your life!

  

And if you have no defined goals, help others. Every day

we have the opportunity to do something for another.



For every kindness or good deed we do, we give something, for not only for the person we aid but also for ourselves.



                              Anthony J. Bruno