It's time to count our blessings

It's time to count our blessings

By Joe Renna

Most immigrants, like the hundreds of thousands who came during the great immigration, were escaping poverty. They held a valise in one hand and hope in the other. For them, the opportunity alone, was enough reason to be thankful. The stories of these immigrants should serve as a lesson for today's society.

People have become so accustomed to the rewards that living in America has given them that they are taken for granted. Recent generations are so privileged that wealth has come to be expected. Any type of setback is considered an outrage. The trend in today's society is to rant if they don't receive what they think is an entitlement. What is needed is an understanding of what it is like to have nothing.

After three generations, first hand accounts of the immigrant experience is no longer part of a child's upbringing. Documentaries and text books can only simulate the emotion and passion that oral history can offer, where stories are told not only in words but in the sparkle of an eye or the touch of a hand. Each story is unique yet together they are one. That experience should stand as a reference in measuring the fortunate times of today.

Gains came through hard work and against tremendous obstacles, some natural and some cultural. But the one constant in the equation was opportunity. Where it didn't exist it was created. The ability to provide for the family fulfilled the most basic need. Given that opportunity was enough.

What that opportunity afforded new arrivals was the ability to labor long hours, sacrifice amenities, and even go to war to preserve the opportunity for others. The things that held the most value could not be put in a suitcase. To have a safe and healthy family meant everything.

Our culture is less humanistic. The values and mores that enriched past generations are hard to find. In place is a society where possessions and access to power, or lack thereof, defines a person's worth. A system designed by political strivings and corporate economic gain established new criteria for people to measure success. But using financial indicators to measure quality of life issues neglects the emotional and spiritual aspects of human existence. What has happened is that the individual has become isolated and the desire for personal fulfillment has replaced that of the community. The standard of success in the past was communalistic. Individual success was appreciated only after the basic needs of the less fortunate were satisfied. The definition of "basic needs" must be reestablished. Contrary to conventional wisdom, it does not mean "money".

The goal of the community was to give the next generation greater opportunity while repaying the previous generation for the sacrifices they made in doing the same. Progress created independence and the lack of reliance on the community enabled the individual to pass on responsibility. Self reliance and individual success was a product of a community working together for a common good. It should be the duty of those who achieve great individual success to reciprocate to the community.

Job security is a thing of the past. Seniors are being taxed out of their homes and health care is barely affordable for most and unattainable for many. Families are splintered and neighbors are transient. The value system which made up the foundation on which all modern advances were made has eroded. It must be repaired if future generations are to have a chance to stand steady.

The material to build the foundation for our future is sitting untapped in in our senior citizen community centers and nursing homes. Their experiences are responsible for everything that we value today. Society would be best served to tap that resource. The only investment is time for a friendly conversation.