Born on the wrong continet

When I was growing up, I had a great appreciation for how lucky that I was to be born in America. That feeling has never left but as I have grown older, I have also realized that we have our faults. No place is nirvana and no place has quite the same sense of options you perceive when you are young. As you grow older, the US has some major drawbacks. Because we do not have the kind of social democracy that you find in Europe or the safety nets that you find in certain other places, we lose some of our freedoms as we get older. Once you are my age, the ability to start all over again and reinvent yourself is not quite as easy. I could stand to have a few more assurances like guaranteed health insurance.

Most of Europe and Canada have had gay marriage or civil unions for years. They have all kinds of things in place to guarantee equality and opportunity for all. So when we say that we are the home of the free, well we have our limits.  I have married the person I love and the government continues to find fault with that choice so I don't get the few safety net protections that are in place. Neither do my friends that are single.

In Germany, you will still find worker engagement in running the companies that employ them. They have more vacation time, shorter work weeks and yet a higher actual level of productivity  I can believe that because while I see others and myself work crazy long hours, I often wonder if we really get that much done after about 35.  From there, productivity diminishes a great deal.  By 60 hours, we are all pretty useless. But many, many folks still feel compelled to work 50 + hours weeks.

I am still patriotic in the sense that I want what is best for me and my fellow citizens but I took the blinders off a long time ago.  It is time to look around at other economies and see what works and what doesn't. I would also like to see us manufacture more like the Germans. They produce more high end items that do not directly tie to killing or blowing up anyone. It is also important to consider the rest of the planet. We are all human beings after all and the more global our world becomes, the more obvious it should be that we are all in this together.