Steve and Cathy's Blog

We have now left Asia. We began this leg of the journey on March 1^stin the Maldives, an island chain off of India, and we left Komodo Island, Indonesia on April 28^th.  That is nearly two months where we made stops in twenty-four ports in twelve countries.

What did we learn in that time?  Our answer: Where do we start?  Each of the countries and each of the cities in those countries had their own story to tell and their own unique culture.  It would be foolish to group them all together and make broad generalizations.

Except for this: this part of the world is booming.  A few weeks back, we listened to Enrichment Lecturer Peter Croyle introduce us to Asia by showing us the slide that heads up this post.

The point of this is to note that more human beings live within this circle – which is just a portionof Asia – than live in the rest of the entire planet.  That statistic alone should command our attention, but there is something more that we experienced by being in these countries, and that is: focus.  Now granted we did not read local papers or watch local television.  Perhaps their media is filled with as much garbage as ours.

But we sense, given their growth rate and the ongoing construction of so much infrastructure that we saw with our own eyes, that their political leadership is focused on building their country.  In some cases, the political system is either closed to most of the population (China) or controlled for long stretches of time by one party.  So the economic decisions are not made through a totally open process.

But they are getting stuff done.  We Americans, on the other hand, spend all of our time and all of our energy on absolute schoolyard, middle school minutiae.  It has been extremely instructive to have been located in Asia for two months and still tuning into MSNBC and Fox News for a few minutes a day.

The symbol of all of Asia is the crane – the construction crane.   In every city we visited, they are visible everywhere.  For instance, in China they are building 30-story buildings that won’t be occupied for a decade.  They are building their future.

Right now, the symbol of America is Twitter.  At least it looks that way from 12,000 miles away.  Trump says something stupid on Twitter and the media wastes the next 24 hours of airtime putting up overwrought reactions from 1) opposition politicians or 2) pajama-clad nobodies living in their parent’s basement.

Social media has had an incredible impact on the United States.  But instead of being a tool that could actually bring us together, it has become a tool by which any two-bit crank can get his/her fifteen minutes of fame/infamy by stating something outrageous– and the rest of the nation gets the vapors in reaction to the stupid drivel he/she espouses.

Asia and the four billion people who live there do not have that luxury, and we would be well advised to begin to understand that they are advancing while we are sitting still. They are building their country while we are tearing ours down.  They are focusing on the future while we are focusing on trivia.  They are living out “How the West Was Won” while we are replicating “Mean Girls.”

Now don’t get us wrong. As we travel to all these countries, we are also struck by how lucky we are to have been born in the United States of America.  Our nation is unique and blessed.  Nowhere else on earth does an individual have the opportunity that is available in America.

What we are saying is that we are squandering our assets.  We are spinning our wheels in endless “He said, She said” nonsense.  We call each other names and play endless “gotcha” games.  We are terminally distracted by useless trivia.

On the other hand, over half the population of the planet, all located in the Eastern Hemisphere, is busy at work making their country – and therefore their lives – better.

Please, America.  We can do better.  Can we please stop the interminable bickering and get back to work?