Will Power, The Key to Self-Reliance

WILLPOWER, THE KEY TO SELF-RELIANCE

By Domenick J. Maglio PhD Traditional Realist

Our modern culture is decreasing our need to be self-reliant. This is insidiously occurring through our willingness to give up our time to make money in a specialized world. The numerous options we have in our society to hire specialists to complete our traditional duties is limiting our opportunities and weakening our ability to be self-reliant. Whenever we face any difficulty instead of doing the job, we turn to specialists to fix it. We are constricting the range of activities we once were expected to do.

We are abdicating our responsibility as parents by hiring Super Nannies to deal with our children who are disobedient to us. We are turning to experts who do potty training, speech therapy, tutoring in any academic area and psychotherapists to deal with every emotional issue.

When the simplest things no longer function in the home we immediately contact a professional to do our work for us. Painting rooms, interior decorating, a faulty faucet, landscaping or other home chores are no longer personally tackled by us. Instead we are outsourcing them to professionals who do our dirty work for a hefty price.

The additional expense is not the primary shortcoming in this economic transaction. Rather it is the loss of opportunity that shows us we are able to successfully complete more things than are listed in our professional job description. We are not challenging our thought processes outside of work in various everyday issues to realize the incredible power of our minds.

Humans have done amazing acts when they focus their minds to survive. Aron Ralston was trapped between boulders in Utah for five days. He chose to amputate his own arm with a dull multi tool to save his life. People have the ability to put off almost certain death waiting to say goodbye to a loved one. Individuals have been buried for many days under tons of debris without food or water and have used every bit of their will power to stay alive.

Will power is the same force when applied to a different skill like raising a child, playing an instrument or a sport, learning advanced math or a foreign language that teaches the person the miraculous results of focusing the mind. This unleashing the inner energy of our brain to give us the impetus and insight needed to solve problems is a force, which we are losing.

President Obama's Osawatomie, Kansas speech on December 6, 2011, is a denouncement of rugged individualism as unworkable. It is a failure on his part to recognize American exceptionalism. The U.S. was propelled to the leadership of the world due to our citizens’ ability to overcome hardships through their own efforts and not by depending on government to bail them out of these personal difficulties. Americans were rugged because our society promoted sacrifice and delayed gratification in the usual ups and downs in life. The hardworking person would face the problem head-on and would triumph. They were not political sheeple.

Our current culture is sending a radically different message. Our pop culture is focused on instant gratification not on disciplining our minds to increase our critical thinking and problem solving. Rather than being pro active and confronting a real problem, our culture says " relax, no problem, man", or "chill." Someone else will take care of it. This passive route is easier though nonproductive when compared to actively applying one’s energies to solve everyday difficulties.

Social networking media may make us falsely popular, gaming may make participants feel brilliant but neither gives us the opportunity to learn what works in reality. The problem with these activities is they produce no tangible results in improving our existence. They do not give a person the same meaningful lessons that improve the mind by actually accomplishing something.

The United States cannot continue being the leader of the free world if we avoid confronting the challenges of life. We cannot continue in a virtual existence devoid of reality. In order to grow as people we need to face reality and allow it to teach us what works and what does not.

Only by people being well rounded, tackling new challenges and solving them can we be a robust and innovative country. A person sharpens his mind by persevering until he successfully finishes a difficult task. He learns that disciplined focus eventually pays dividends of financial and mental strength to keep him free.

Americans have to choose between a life of self indulgence and passive non productive activities that numb our minds or confronting the annoying, mundane issues that have faced mankind from the beginning of time. Solving daily problems gives us confidence to overcome the next obstacle. These occurrences help us prove to ourselves that we can do anything when we focus our minds. Our accumulated economic, relational and moral accomplishments as citizens have created the foundations of our stable and prosperous nation.

When people know they can handle their own problems they resent government interference of offering goods and services that will rob them of their liberty. Being free means a person wants to make his own decisions. Accepting bribes “to get something for nothing” means the nothing is your savings and freedom. Independent souls are resistant to desiring more government as they relish freedom.

The individual’s development of will power is an essential force in being successful in the world of hard knocks known as reality. Self-competence makes people tougher and more aware of the world around them. These self-disciplined people are the backbone of a competitive free market society.

WHO SHOULD RAISE THE KIDS, PARENTS OR SCHOOLS?

WHO SHOULD RAISE THE KIDS, PARENTS OR SCHOOLS?

By Domenick J. Maglio, PhD. Traditional Realist

Our nation has thrived with parents having the right and responsibility to raise their children as they see fit. Parents are not perfect in all their decisions but for the most part they have given us strong morals and insight to succeed in a complex society. The state has only been allowed to intervene when the child’s life was in imminent danger. As government has grown local, state and federal laws dictating when a representative can invade the sanctity of the family has expanded.

The current line of attack on the family unit is being fought in public schools. Prayer and almost any mention of God have been nearly eradicated although the overwhelming majority of citizens approve of them. Even the concept of the family has been blurred by including all types of configurations of people residing in a house as equal to a father, mother and children.

Now the rights and responsibility of parents to determine what is proper for their children to eat and drink are being usurped by government bureaucrats and enforced by school officials. First certain foods and drinks were banned in vending machines. Now Los Angeles county school district is outlawing chocolate milk in the lunchroom.

According to the Los Angeles Daily News, children in the LA united school district responded to soda being restricted in school vending machines by bringing their own to school in their lunch boxes. Ultimately parents have the power not to give their children money to buy soda and to refuse to provide soda for them to put in their lunchboxes.

Students may not have the availability to buy soda, cigarettes or drugs in school but it does not mean they cannot obtain them somewhere else in the community. By removing the opportunity to make reasonable and simple decisions like what beverage to drink, we are setting the child up not to learn to making good decisions.

Children who are not used to denying themselves are more susceptible to addictive behavior. A student whose parents tell him not to buy soda should listen to them or suffer parental consequences for not listening. These are wonderful lessons for instilling the values that keep the child on the straight and narrow path.

Parents have more time and intimate knowledge of their child than any government bureaucrat can possibly possess. By government schools decreeing what children should eat, they are undermining the authority of the parents. Some modern parents may initially be relieved to have the state taking over their child’s eating habits. These same people will not be so receptive if the menu in their homes or particular physical exercise would be dictated by government bureaucrats. Limiting parental freedom to educate their own children as to the best way to live is a slippery slope. We have seen intellectual elites in centralized nations like Cuba, Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union attempt to indoctrinate instead of educate children. When government attempts to micromanage every aspect of society by gradually reducing personal freedom citizens become more dependent until they become enslaved.

Unless we want to live in a totalitarian regime, the responsibility of raising a child needs to remain in the most efficient social unit, the family.

United States citizens need to evaluate the type of society they want. The more our government schools offer programs and mandates that minimize the role and power of the parent and increase the already unrealistic job description of the teacher the more student’s education will suffer.

Educating students and parents about the importance of nutrition and exercise for health and longevity affects people’s choices. This is already happening in public schools where soda consumption is declining even in schools with soda in vending machines.

Our children should learn to make good choices not be limited in their freedom.

Better choices will not only happen in the school building but throughout the community. Students should not be denied making age appropriate decisions. They should be taught how to make rational choices, which will protect them in a multitude of situations.

Modern parents need to be empowered to be strong authority figures by our schools, not be dismissed. When parents are more precise in their expectations and standards at home, students do perform better in school. Parents and schools need to be on the same page in order to maximize the student’s learning.

There will never be enough state workers to replace the parents in the life of the child. Parents have the primary responsibility to buy the food, provide opportunities for physical activity and teach children to make good choices. Parents should be encouraged and inspired to be the best parents they can be. Hopefully no bureaucrat will ever be assigned by law more power to control a child than a functioning parent.

Dr. Maglio is the author of Invasion Within and Essential Parenting. He is a psychotherapist and the owner/director of Wider Horizons School.

Visit: www.drmaglio.com.