Vonnegut's Gone -The American Dream - Inverted

There is a danger to resting too much, it slackens your muscles, it takes away from your spirit, and it makes you, just plain lazy. Lazy, it's a term that the U.S. is trying to do away with, but it has infested our culture all around about America. Something for nothing, pay for no work, it's a pitch you hear constantly; in fact, there are organizations which promise that if you just pay this amount into their scheme, then recruit two others to do the same, eventually you will receive $3500.00 per month, forever. You see a problem with such? Can you receive rewards without effort, something for nothing?

Work, effort, achievement, they are words which mean a life put into motion, lived for the intensity of the day, yet all around us are people who are letting that life pass bye them in the name of something else. That something they call "rest." Rather than effort being the standard, moving toward happiness and relaxation has become the call.

The term stress is applied to how we behave, when only thirty years ago it was understood as a point of flaw in metal or design, today it is a point of flaw in behavior. "He (or she (!)) went postal because they were stressed." Few would challenge that concept, few would doubt it, and many would believe that to be a truism of the world that people who are "stressed out" live in. Therefore, the antidote to stress is- relaxation.

The world lost a great author April 13, Friday (the thirteenth), in Kurt Vonnegut who expressed it best this way: "Be careful what you pretend to be because you are what you pretend to be." Are we, and especially in the U.S., too at leisure? Are we pretending that things are O.K., when really - they aren't, O.K.? Being very succinct, Vonnegut would note that; "If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you're a one-eyed man in a kingdom of the blind." [Brainymedia, 2007]

Lazy isn't a word that we like, we don't like having it applied to us, we just don't like to think that we have become lazy. How we get past lazy is a series of mental gymnastics in the U.S. First, we maintain that it is as important to relax, as it is to work. We say this as a mantra of life, as a profound statement of reality, and we say it without questioning whether it is true or not.

Second, we don't stop to ponder at what relaxation is, because in many homes in the U.S. relaxation has become a reality based in fiction, portrayed on the television set. However, the justification against work ethic, versus relaxation ethic, this way of life is dangerous to us; do you think we are becoming lazy?

The evidence of America being anti-work, in favor of relaxation, is evident by our national health crisis with obesity- in history there has never been a nation with so much, so consumed with so much, becoming increasingly less healthy. We do need to hear this great author be honest with us; "I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can't see from the center."
[Brainymedia, 2007]

References: Brainymedia; site for daily quotes, viewable on the World Wide Web at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/k/kurt_vonnegut.html , 2007