Reaching for Excellence in America

The Reach for Excellent in America

When I grew up in the late Fifties and Sixties, the buzzword was “Reaching for the Gold.” You would hear this phrase said in schools, work places and in the government. The emphasis was placed on doing your absolute best. You were always striving to be the best in everything that you did. Why, because you knew that no one was going to give you anything for doing nothing. So you went to work striving to do your best, not expecting anything for your best, but recognition that you tried.
In the Seventies, the buzzword was “Excel in Excellence.” Again, you would hear this phrase in our schools, work places and in the government. The emphasis was placed on if you wanted to be the best you had to excel or try to do your best. During this period, you would try to do your best, if you wanted to excel, but you were not required to excel. If you failed in your strive for excellence, someone would be there to give you a helping hand or a job in the Army starting at Seventy nine dollars a month. McNamara’s 100,000 proved that the military would take anything that could walk upright.
The Eighties, our new buzzword was “The Gold Standard.” This new buzzword was not heard in many places, but the civilian or commercial job markets were always spouting it in their advertisements. I am not sure that the society really knew what a “Gold Standard” was or how to achieve the standard. Many new changes in how we were to raise our children and what the schools were to teach. None of these new changes brought about a viable “Gold Standard.” In case everyone forgot what the “Gold Standard” stood for, it was the standard that everyone would strive to achieve. It was the very best that anyone could achieve. Yet, instead of achieving the best that you can do, we started to turn into a new buzzword the “Welfare State.” Do not worry about striving to do the best you can, because you are worthless. So, just hold out your hand for government assistance. In other words, if you wait and do nothing, the government will give you everything you need.
The Nineties proved one thing. That thing was the “Gold Standard” had loss some of its luster. It was looking a little tarnished in spots. On the other hand, maybe it was not tarnish, but something very different. You weren’t expected to do your best for it to be the “Gold Standard”. No sir, all you had to do was to show up for work and then you are part of the upper ten percent of great workers. You did not have to do anything to achieve “excellence”. In school the idea that everyone needed a tutor or was ADHD. Back in my day, you were not ADHD, but just plain lazy. Therefore, during this decade it seems that laziness replaced excellence.
Now we are in the new millennium and the “Gold Standard” is not gold any more, but from what I have seen, it is more like brass. You know a brilliant show, without having substance or value. With all the higher paying jobs of the manufacturers sent overseas to reduce cost and quality, the government realizes that it has created a nation of welfare recipients and is having trouble getting money to cover the ever-growing debt that they the government caused. With no workers to tax, there is no tax income to pay the “welfare hogs” currently on the rolls across the nation. To add to the every growing problem that the government is facing, the schools are not generating the needed educated workers to take back the jobs if the government pulled them back to the U.S. Now the government is tired of giving handouts so it is trying to get people back to work. You remember work, something that you did to pass the time while you searched the web for the next new gadget made in China or Pakistan. It is time that America woke up from the long slumber that Congress and the ever-growing government agencies have placed it in and take back what is ours, the right to be Free Americans that are in the search of Excellent.
P.S. – I had to dummy down this short piece so all of our recent college graduates could read it without a dictionary.
© Wayne Smith, 2008