We Have Lost Our Way

Street side memorial for the 20 children of Sandy Hook Elementary

"Destroy the family, you destroy the country."
~ Vladimir Llyich Lenin, 1st Leader of the Soviet Union


We have lost our way.  The United States of America have been going down a terrible road for quite some time.  A great nation like ours hardly ever gets taken over from external forces; it almost always implodes from the inside. 

The mindless horrors from the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting is just the latest symptom of a much deeper problem our country is facing; we have created a nation that is eroding from the inside out.

America is a very young country.  We are the equivalent of an adolescent and like an adolescent, we think we know better than everyone else that have come before us.  But we do not.  We may be more advanced in technology, agriculture, and human rights, but we have lost our way when it comes to human nature.

We have lost our humanity as a nation.  This is why Eastern philosophy, such as Buddhism and the Yin/Yang concept, that are thousands of years old are now finally making their way into our field of psychology and therapy.  The solutions to the problems that we have created for ourselves have already been answered by much wiser nations thousands of years ago.

We are an adolescent that refused to listen; we thought we knew better and our children and citizens have paid the price.

1) Somewhere along the way we told ourselves that appropriately spanking our children is "abuse" instead of discipline.

2) Somewhere along the way we told ourselves that we need to be our children's "friend".  We stopped being parents.  We stopped guiding and teaching with wisdom and love.

3) Somewhere along the way we told ourselves that we cannot let our children go through anything difficult; that we need to give them only praise.  As a result they grew to be adults who possessed no tools to deal with any adversity or hardships.

4) Somewhere along the way we told ourselves that we should give our children anything they wanted.  As a result they grew up to be adults who feel they are entitled to happiness and success instead of working for it.

5) Somewhere along the way we told ourselves that we needed to focus on materialism.  We thought that throwing toys, video games, mobile devices, clothes, and cars would make up for our lack of love, time, and devotion to our children.

6) Somewhere along the way we told ourselves that we didn't need Fathers.

7) Somewhere along the way we told ourselves that men were stupid, incapable, shallow, evil, rapists, and that all problems of the world were caused by them.  This is what boys of the last 30 years heard while growing up.  As a result they grew up to be fearful men, weak boyfriends, overwhelmed husbands, and absentee fathers.

8) Somewhere along the way we told ourselves that being a loving and giving woman was negative.  We convinced ourselves that feminine traits were weak; that honoring your husband was a form of "oppression" and that a woman needed to be just like a man.  So women de-valued themselves sexually, behaved like men, and suppressed their natural, beautiful feminine qualities. As a result women moved from one unhealthy relationship to the next, often times dragging their children through instability and misery.

9) Somewhere along the way we told ourselves to celebrate single motherhood instead of teaching our young women how to avoid it.

10) Somewhere along the way we told ourselves that it's perfectly fine to have reality television and it's "stars" raise our children.  As a result we have a generation of young adults who are self-centered, disrespectful, drama-ridden, and unable to take responsibility for their own problems.

11) Somewhere along the way, we told ourselves that men and women shouldn't have roles. This created a nation of confused, frustrated, and resentful husbands and wives.  As a result we have very few healthy and strong marriages.  Once that core broke down, our ability to be good parents also collapsed.

12) Somewhere along the way family values became "old", "backwards", and "conservative" instead of simply "values". 

13) Somewhere along the way being "tolerant" meant only being tolerant of anything that is deviant.  As a result, if you wanted to hold true to family values that have been passed down through the centuries, you were labeled as "uneducated" or a "hateful".

14) Somewhere along the way we became so "open minded" that our brains collectively fell out.

15) Somewhere along the way we started to care more about the criminals' rights than the victims' rights.  As result the criminals were given media headlines and notoriety, which in turn created more copy cats because it is far better for them to die an evil monster than a loser nobody.

16) Somewhere along the way we told ourselves we needed to save everyone. That everyone, no matter how disturbed and how many times they broke the law, deserved endless chances. As a result thousands upon thousands of innocent people have lost their lives needlessly because criminals were allowed to continue to walk among good citizens.

17) Somewhere along the way we lost our common sense and allowed war machines to be easily accessible because we didn't want to "intrude on anyone's rights".

18) Somewhere along the way we become terrified of "offending" everyone and every group. As a result we became too paralyzed with fear to do what was right because it was too hard. 

America is the young, rich, spoiled adolescent that no one could discipline.  We are not "progressive".  We are not "enlightened". We are currently in the "dark ages".  We are a lost nation and we have done it to ourselves.

Changing our current environment starts with each of us individually. Are we paralyzed with fear? Do we simply go along with what is trendy and what is politically correct? Or do we have the courage to stand up for what is right...what has always been right...and live our life by a standard that is higher than what is acceptable today?

Do you have the emotional fortitude to withstand the criticisms? Do you have the mental strength to handle the ridicule? If you do not, then you will pass on those weaknesses to your children. 

Our only salvation is that we raise our children, not under the current modern day principles, but under the time tested values that have come before us.  We need to look back to the past if we have any hope of a promising future.