Are Americans Happy With Their Country?

I don't know how reliable the survey source is, but the results are still interesting. 

A recent online poll of more than 2,000 adults by TransferWise, a UK peer-to-peer money transfer service, revealed that 35 percent of American-born residents and emigrants would consider leaving the US to live in another country.

This percentage greatly increases for those age 18 to 34. More than half of millennials, a whopping 55 percent, said that they would consider leaving the U.S. for foreign shores. Among them, 43 percent of men and 38 percent of women noted that a higher salary would be a factor in their relocation decision.

That all being said, only .001 percent of the population actually renounced citizenship in 2014.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: 

If that many Americans are unhappy with the country, maybe the politicians should address the reasons why.

Don't miss my new novel, "You Heard It Here First!" on Amazon, Nook, and Kindle!

You didn't build that meme!

Meme: 1 : an idea, belief or belief system, or pattern of behavior that spreads throughout a culture either vertically by cultural inheritance (as by parents to children) or horizontally by cultural acquisition (as by peers, information media, and entertainment media)

2 : a pervasive thought or thought pattern that replicates itself via cultural means; a parasitic code, a virus of the mind especially contagious to children and the impressionable 

(Etymology : meme : derived from the Greek mimëma, 'something imitated', by Richard Dawkins in 1976)

Pronounced (Meem; rhymes with dream)

Borrowed from UrbanDictionary.com

I'm starting to think this will be the presidential election that was fought [incorrectly] with internet memes.

And why shouldn't it be? 

They are fast, cheap (free), funny, and easy to make happen. If you make a clever enough one, it can spread like wildfire before bedtime. They convey a message (or share a belief really) that is easily remembered and identifiable. A political and PR dream come true.

Now here's the problem. I like to mock some of President Obama's chest-thumping, BFD, credit-taking as much as the next Republican. It really does annoy me. But this week's memes are not just wrong, they are going too far.

And I say this as one who is in the process of starting her own small business, and really would love to do nothing all day but share anti-Obama memes. In fact, why can't I be paid to sit around and do that all day? It sounds like a job I would be well qualified for!

Here's the problem, the meme of the week is a little too wrong. Thanks to Obama's chest-thumping past, everyone (and by everyone, I mean non-Democrats) assume "You didn't build that" meant that the government did it for you. And why shouldn't we think that? No politician ever before has wanted to grow the government and take credit for things like Obama does. But! That's not what he actually said.

Read for yourself:

"There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me -- because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t -- look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.

"If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

"The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires.

"So we say to ourselves, ever since the founding of this country, you know what, there are some things we do better together. That’s how we funded the G.I. Bill. That’s how we created the middle class. That’s how we built the Golden Gate Bridge or the Hoover Dam. That’s how we invented the Internet. That’s how we sent a man to the moon. We rise or fall together as one nation and as one people, and that’s the reason I’m running for President -- because I still believe in that idea. You’re not on your own, we’re in this together."

In a rather tasteful change of pace, he didn't take the glory for everyone else's success. But the memes sure don't imply that, do they?

I'm going to put myself out there and admit a few things.  And again, I am a Republican, so it does pain me to say it.

I'm *almost* a small business owner. I'm hoping that within the next 3-4 weeks I can really justify saying I'm a small business owner, and not just a freelancer. It has been a lot of hard work for several months to build from an idea I had to an actual business. And trust me, a lot of that hard work was done solely by me. But it wasn't all done by me. Like Obama said, I had good teachers who taught me some invaluable skills. Thanks to the competitive, commercial American capitalist system, there is room out there for a business like mine to enter the market. I'd like to pretend my idea is unique and no one has thought of it before. But that's not true. There are similar businesses out there, but we all want to do it a little bit different. My company will operate entirely online, and employs 5-6 people around the country. As a result, I have multiple ISPs to thank for their part, plus my [patient] employees (not to mention the network of people who gave them their skills), and I suppose the good people at Apple and Acer for their fine products.

A decade or more ago people threw a fit over Hillary Clinton's "It Takes a Village" comments. They wanted to give all the credit to mothers for raising their children. I struggled then like I struggle now. Mothers do deserve most of the credit. But mothers need to thank the village that gave them the tools to raise that child. It isn't that different from this week's hot spot memes. Sure, the business owners deserve a lot of the credit. But they also need to thank the other service providers out there for providing them the tools.

No, You Cannot Have it All.

It started with an article by Anne-Marie Slaughter in The Atlantic, “Why Women Still Can't Have it All.” It was followed up by hundreds, if not thousands, of blog posts and comments, and most notably a response article by James Joyner in the same magazine, “Men Can't Have it All Either.” Those two articles are primarily about fathers and mothers in the workplace, to which a response has been issued by the singles of the world, “Singles Deserve Work-Life Balance Too.”

I'd like to add my two cents to the ongoing debate and whining. Oh yes, whining. See, I'd like to submit for debate that no one is ever going to have it all. It doesn't actually exist, nor should it.

This concept or idea that we (a category I will define as current-day Americans only. This is not a phenomena that I have seen spread around the world.) should have it all, or that anyone indeed does have it all, is a very modern, recent development. When in history has any other generation expected a “work-life balance?” Or that they should have a nice home, 2 cars, 2.3 children, a designer breed dog, an attentive and responsive spouse, family vacations, “me time,” and applause for their efforts at the end of the day?

Do you think George Washington came home after a busy day of crossing the Delaware River and expected Martha to rub his shoulders just before he disappeared for a long bath and a good book? Or maybe that's too much ancient history. Let's move farther up. Do you think the pioneers crossed the plains, settled their land, and then complained that the grass was greener on the other side of the valley? Or did they work for their green grass, putting in hours of tending the fields, inventing irrigation, and at the end of the day ate what they grew? What about in the 1950's? Did anyone ever have it all in the days of “Leave it to Beaver?” Ward went off to work, and June stayed home and worked. (You know Beaver never kept his room clean.) Did they complain they didn't have it all? Or did they keep working to keep what they had?

There is this sense of entitlement growing across the nation, and sadly, it seems to emanate from my own generation. People believe that “it all” exists. And worse, they believe they deserve to have “it all.” What is “it all” about? Work-life balance- where you work, but you get to play as well. Your personal life is just as important as your professional one. It means we all have equal everything, except not really. We don't really want what everyone else has. We really want everyone else to be status quo, while we have a little bit more. We want to make sure everyone has access to healthcare, but really we want our own healthcare to cost less. We want to be able to work, earn a paycheck, and go home at the end of the day knowing that Acme Company is still running and making money, while we run through the sprinklers.

This is a ridiculous concept. When has this ever worked? Has there ever been a point in history where civilization actually succeeded by not working?

There is no such thing as having it all. There is the perception that others “have it all.” It is the “keeping up with the Joneses” or worse, “keeping up with the Kardashians,” mentality that others have something we want. We think we know what they have, but how do we know we would really be happy with their choices? We perceive that they have something we want, and somehow over the past generation, we have convinced ourselves we are entitled to it.

We are not entitled to anything. If we want something we must work to get it. If our work effort does not earn it, that does not mean we should change the situation until we get what we want. Yes, there are many scenarios where that mentality works (I am not arguing against “out of the box” thinking). But women, men, and singles (and soon I'm sure we'll find articles adding in each individual race, age, sexual preference, occupation, etc.) will never have it all, because it doesn't exist.

Personally, I think this idea that “it all” exists is the result of marketing campaigns over the past 20-40 years. No generation ever before has actually had “it all.” And yet, they survived, they produced, and from what history has told us, they were happy. They didn't rely on pills, therapists, me time, and a work-life balance initiative, in order to succeed. They worked and they were happy.

This new dominant generation, the Me/Pepsi/X/Social Media Generation, will ruin itself with this mentality that they deserve to have it all, or that they will ever achieve it. We must stop ourselves and learn to be happy with what we have. We were raised in the “gimme” age of the 80s, and by the “devil may care” attitudes of our parents from the 60s and 70s. We are both a product of our upbringing, being told we could do anything, achieve anything, and that we deserved trophies when we didn't win, and yet we are also victims of our own greed. We believed the ideas that lingered from the previous decades and didn't stop to think it through. We need to stop now and ask ourselves what is truly possible.

Can we have it all? Does such a thing exist? Has history set such a precedent?

This generation has achieved a great many things. We are living in the dreams of the future. But there are still lessons we should learn from the past, and that includes the rewards and confidence that comes with hard work. We need to learn to depend on ourselves and reap what we sow, rather than expect that any amount of work will give us what we want.

And last but not least, we need to stop thinking in terms of what we “want” to have, and begin to think in terms of what we need to have.