A Country Half Full

All I've been hearing from news media the last few weeks is how bad things are and how little confidence people have in the government and President Obama. I must say that even though things haven't been going exactly swimmingly (the Japan nuclear disaster, Lybia, the economy), whining and being apathetic isn't going to accomplish anything. It bothers me that people are so quick to point fingers and throw in the towel. Our country deserves better from its leaders and citizens. I will be the first to admit that Obama hasn't been the force for positive change that he seemed to be in January 2009, but we have nobody to blame but ourselves for that one.

Before the guy had even done anything we filled our glass of optimism to the brim and never bothered to think about the fact that it wouldn't be easy to right all the wrongs of the previous administration and achieve every item in an ambitious agenda. Not to mention that a bunch of other crap came up while Obama was tackling the existing issues. The BP oil spill, various revolutions and this recent tragedy in Japan only heaped more to do items on America's painfully long list. Rather than being so defeatist and negative, the nation needs to regain perspective and think about how unfair we made the expectations. Not even a dream team of leaders like FDR, George Washington and Ronald Reagan could have met the lofty goals we set two years ago. The glass needs to be about half full now, not mostly empty, because that's where we are.

This will be a good test to see if people in this country can see things as they are, without panicking, without getting angry or complacent and with a guarded sense of optimism. I'm not saying the glass won't ever be full, and I'm not saying it will be full soon, what I am saying is that politicians and citizens need to be less ready to build up their leaders, only to tear them down a short time later. If we were in charge we'd kill for that kind of mentality from those that we serve.