Recently, ABC News Anchor Elizabeth Vargas left the nightly news for a regular gig on 20/20. Her reason? She was expecting another child and the nightly news meant a far too demanding schedule for a mother of two young children. Feminists groups were outraged. One asked, “If she can’t have it all, who can?”
The answer is, “No one.” No one can “have it all.” Sacrifices must be made. One of our greatest problems as Americans is that most of us have a series of contradictory urges. Like the child who wants to be a baseball player, an astronaut, and a detective, Americans want a great home life, a fantastically successful career; they want to send their kids to fine colleges, have a great retirement, and get whatever they want when they want it.
These desires can’t all be fulfilled completely, and if we’re honest some are really more a whimsical wish than anything that’s remotely connected to reality in our lives. Our greatest challenge is that we’re making sacrifices without even knowing it.
Two men get $200, the first puts the money into retirement, and the second buys a new computer accessory. Both men have made a sacrifice. The first sacrificed short-term fulfillment for long-term success. The second man sacrificed some long-term savings for short-term fulfillment.
The same can be said of decisions involving working or spending time with family. There’s some sacrifice made in the process, as some time is take away from hearth and home to take care of expenses.
The question truly becomes one of balancing out the sacrifices. Thinking about the sacrifices we’re making will help us make better decisions, but the first step is to start to think. Too much is done without a thought, hence Americans find themselves struggling in so many areas of life.
We may sacrifice some success in our careers to spend more in our family, or we may sacrifice some short-term enjoyment in order to obtain financial success.
Applied to our politics, we begin to realize that our politicians are making sacrifices as well. They’re sacrificing our children’s long-term futures to fund absurd pork barrel programs in order to gain rewards from special interests so they can get re-elected.
Part of this is due to the contradictory nature of the American people. We want a balanced budget, not to pay much in taxes, as well as to have many government programs that consume vast amounts of money. We also strongly oppose pork barrel programs, but love how our congressman brings home the bacon.
We must realize we cannot have it all . We can either be willing to see a reduction in spending to bring the budget into balance, which may mean cuts in important programs and less federal spending in our districts, or we must choose to have high deficits and leave the tab for the young to pay.
On Social Security, we can upset the powerful senior’s lobby by reforming Social Security now, or wait until there is no other option other than a substantial cut in benefits or a tax increase.
As our lives will make more sense when we become aware of sacrifice, our politics will make more sense as we force ourselves to analyze what we’re actually sacrificing rather than being controlled by slick political marketing that avoids real issues.
Adam Graham is the author of the Screwtape Reports which is available at www.lulu.com/content/165415. He was the 2000 Montana State Coordinator of the Alan Keyes Presidential Campaign. He and his wife live in Boise, Idaho. He is a staff blogger for WhereIstand.com. He is a columnist for AmericanDaily.com, RenewAmerica.us, The Conservative Voice.com and Conservatown.com. You can visit his blog at www.adamsweb.us/blog. You can also subscribe to his podcast at: http//feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/blgH
