Refocusing America’s Attention
Commentary
America is struggling.
While this country and its people have faced their share of difficulties—including the Great Depression, several wars, terrorist attacks, and countless devastating natural disasters—we seem to be losing a key attribute of our national identity: our confidence in our ability to solve problems and achieve what was once considered “impossible.”
That confidence was born of at least three widespread attributes—initiative, gratitude, and humility—which are sorely lacking at present.
Initiative is what’s behind every single aspect of America’s political and economic success throughout the nearly two and a half centuries of our existence. Initiative is tied to individual effort. It is born of optimism and the fundamental belief that one is capable of doing something. It is a recognition of agency, self-efficacy, an internal locus of control….