Choice & Consequence: Resurrecting American Society

"I did it again!" I muttered quietly to myself, frustrated as I realized I had slept through my alarm.

The clock read 6:10 a.m., a full forty minutes after the set alarm time. I play basketball three days a week at 6 a.m., and since the gym I play in is fifteen minutes from my home, I set my alarm for 5:30.

I lay for a few minutes, feeling the frustration. As a writer, I spend the bulk of my time in front of a computer screen, so it's imperative that I meet my exercise schedule if I don't want my body to fall apart.

Then, in those quiet moments thinking to myself in the dark, it dawned on me what had occurred, and that it was a parallel to so many other things in life.

"My choice to sleep in this morning was made last night!" I realized. I had chosen to stay up until 11:00 the night before working on a project. Then, oddly enough, I was mad at my body for not waking up to my alarm. But by then it was too late; I was beyond the free realm of choice and had entered the inexorable realm of consequence.

How many choices do we make on a daily basis, for which we do not see the consequences until later in life? Then, when we experience the consequences, how often do we get angry and frustrated because we're not getting what we want?

In a broader sense, this is what is happening to America at large. We're frustrated with the size of our national deficit and the impending Social Security crisis, yet this was a choice we made over 70 years ago with the New Deal. New Deal for citizens in the 1930's; very Bad Deal for us today.

We hold peace rallies after spending precious time from our lives watching movies saturated with violence. We spend millions on ads and programs to reduce teenage pregnancy after infiltrating the media and our homes with inappropriate movies, magazines, and other media that encourage such behavior (then, of course, we think the answer is abortion).

Every choice carries a consequence. When America accepts this, she will be resurrected from her current travails. And it starts with you and I, as individual citizens.

What will you choose today, and how will the consequences of that choice manifest later in your life?

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